I love the game of football. In my book there is no better game. It is a game of Power, skill and all around athletic performance. I played football all the way into college and then I broke my knee, went on a mission and got married. That was the end of my football career. However I have always had a longing for the game and at one time wanted to be a school teacher just so I could coach football.This year Daniel wanted to play football really bad. He normally never asks for anything and is very conscious of what things cost. The fee for playing was $150.00. As I said, normally Daniel would never ask for such a thing but this was different. He reminded me everyday and would not let it drop. I told him that football is a rough sport and he is not the bigest kid in his school, he is actualy one of the smaller kids. After a few weeks I realized this was seriouse and went to enroll him. The only issue I had was that I know little league and find it to be a place where the coach and all of his kids friends play and get coached and the rest of them sit on the bench and play the left field type of positions. I was pretty sure Daniel would fall into this catagorie so I signed him up on one condition and that was that I would be the head coach.
I bought a book on coaching and read it cover to cover, as well as talking to a Kelly Willey (One of the guys who's family I home teach) and geared up to be "Coach Stock." I have to say that it was one of the most enjoyable things I have ever done. I put it up there with a really good fishing trip, maybe even better. We never one a game, we did not even score a touch down out side of our scrimage. But what a season.! I took 24 eleven year olds, all but 4 or 5 had played before, and taught them how to play the game. We got put into a game schedule with some seasoned teams that had been playing together for 2 to 4 years and were realy good. The first few games my boys got to where they were afraid to pick up the ball. But thanks to a good assistant coach we turned them into tough well developed players. They got to where they could hit, run, block and tackle with some of the best. I saw some great plays come out of them by the end of the year and was so proud of them by the end of the season.
I never set out to win a game. My purpose after the first slaughtering was to teach each boy who wanted to learn how to play the game and play it good. Daniel did awsome. We ended up using him as a wingback as well as a defensive crawler. That is a position that my defensive coach created. We put two little guys who were quick on all fours on either side of the nose guard. They were to crawl as fast as they could into the backfield and cause havock. It worked wonders and nobody was able to run a play up the middle. We also recovered any bad snaps instantly. Some of the teams got the point where they were using the shotgun position to try and avoid these guys. Daniel caught some good passes and ran some good plays. He truly became a good player and will be awsome next year. I am glad that he got the opportunity. I am glad that I got the opportunity to coach.Adam also played. I was not able to be his coach and he had one of "those coaches" I was talking about. He was not interested in teaching football just interested in winning games. He never really developed his boys into more then they already were. And guess what, they didn't win any games either. Despite that Adam did well and had a good time. He is a huge boy and when he tackeled it was like watching a bear tackle someone. He just obsorbed them and crushed them to the ground. It was really fun to watch. In the games he was not fast enough to run down many ball carriers but in practice durring the drills nobody got past him or even moved him. I think with a little work this summer he might be ready to take on a few running backs in the open field.
I do not have any pictures of Adam as yet but Daniel is one of the kids on all fours in two of the pictures and I am in a couple of them as well.
