Awkward. Frustrating. Exasperating. And those are just a few of the adjectives Greensburg’s Clint Young used recently to describe his first two years as a head high school football coach.
Young, you’ll recall, was hired just weeks before the tornado to replace Shawn Starr to run the Ranger high school program after going 13-1 the previous two years as Greensburg’s junior high coach. After a pair of 3-6 seasons the last two years, however, Young has spent more than a little time reflecting on why better results weren’t in evidence, what he might have done differently and how this upcoming season is likely a watershed campaign for both him and the seniors who were an integral part of that magical 7-0 jr high season as eighth graders four years ago.
Baptism by fire…
“It’s just been an awkward past couple of years,” Young said last week. “No one expects going into his first head coaching job that overnight he’s suddenly going to be without a school, a weight room or a home field four months before your season opener.
“Going 3-6 twice has just been very frustrating for me personally, and I take responsibility for it.”
As for how he approached coaching a group of teenagers who were nearly all homeless and displaced in the weeks leading up to the ’07 season, Young was entering uncharted territory. He admits to having mellowed his level of expectations that first season, being particularly understanding of his players’ plight in light of having lost his own home to the storm. But did he go too far? Was he too empathetic?
Too soft for too long?
“Before (the storm) I was known as a guy who didn’t take any excuses from anybody,” he said. “Not from players, not from my staff. I was that way as a high school assistant and as a head junior high coach.
“But after that tornado hit, how do you hold kids accountable the same way you did before it tore up the town?
“Looking back, do I think I made a mistake in taking too many excuses? Maybe, but on top of all the inconveniences we had media coverage all summer through our first several games to deal with, including the trip to Kansas City as guests of the Chiefs.
“People wanted to see understanding on my part that year and I tried to be as understanding as I could, but then that attitude carried over to last year. We’re at the point now where again, I don’t accept excuses. I don’t care if your leg hurts or you had to work all day before practice. You make excuses and don’t put out you’ll be sorry down the road.”
Young said he ran resumption of his former no-nonsense approach past this year’s seniors during a Sunday night get together at his house that ran until nearly midnight. The verdict was unanimous.
“The seniors all agreed that’s the way it has to be and they’re willing to operate that way. So it’s time to go back to my roots, to the way these kids are used to operating from when I had them (juniors and seniors) back in junior high. And I think the younger kids we have coming out this year will follow the older ones’ example.
“I know these kids want to win as bad as I do and they remember what it feels like from three and four years ago. So they’re ready to take whatever I put them through.”
Not a football town yet…
Young’s nose-to-the-grindstone work ethic, however, hasn’t always gone over all that well in a community that’s historically identified itself as more of a basketball town, such as Macksville was until a new football coach and new attitude resulted in first, perennial playoff appearances and finally a state championship for the Mustangs in 2007.
“I hear complaints for how much we run, for how much we hit in practice,” Young said. “I don’t hear them directly, but they get back to me. That kind of stuff isn’t unusual in a place that hasn’t had a lot of success in recent times in football, and it doesn’t bother me so much as a cut on me, but as an attitude that gets back to the kids and raises doubts in their minds as to whether what they’re doing is worthwhile.
“Our record wasn’t as good as I’d have hoped the last two years, but on the other hand, over half our seniors the last two years have gone on to play football at the college level (including three of last year’s four seniors, Shane Engelken, Adam Haskin and Kyle Beltz). That shows that football’s starting to take hold with the kids and it will spread to the community itself as we have more success as a team.”
Pluses and minuses of new summer rules…
One thing that’s already changed for this year is the new state regulations that allow a great deal more opportunity for coaches to work with athletes over the summer.
“Before you basically couldn’t have more than three kids on the field with a ball for most of the summer, until your summer camp,” Young said. “But this year you can spend as much time with them as you want from after Memorial Day up until July 18, which will be the last day of our camp (that will run July 13-18). After that we can’t do much with them until preseason practice starts in mid-August.”
As with any change, there are pros and cons with the new freedom, many of the cons falling to schools in smaller communities where the same athletes generally play in all sports.
“Kids are getting stretched pretty thin,” Young said, “and you worry about burnout. As a football coach my season comes up first, so I want them five days a week from late May until late July. But the basketball coach wants them some too, so a lot of kids try to make summer practice for both. And then, if they work during the day, that’s just one more thing for them to deal with.
“Of course, it’s also great for me to be able to work directly with them for almost two months straight.”
For six weeks running the majority of the players who’ll be in camp later this month have been showing up at 6 a.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday to lift weights for an hour before another hour of conditioning. Practices have been held Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 7:30 until dark.
Off season turnout better, but...
While turnout in early June was “around 20 kids” the regulars have fallen to 13 or 14 recently—an improvement, but not yet the level of commitment it will take to win consistently.
“It’s better than in the past, but not what some other schools are getting,” Young said. He draws a quick comparison with the level of off-season commitment at Pretty Prairie where his older brother C. T. has been the coach for some time.
“He (C. T.) gets 98 to 100 percent turnout every single day,” Young said. “But again, that place has a football mentality, a tradition that the younger kids want to uphold once they get to be old enough to be a part of it. That can happen here, but after the last two years it’s just going to take a little longer than I’d expected.”
Until recently the emphasis on Tuesday and Thursday nights in Greensburg has been exclusively on improving a defense that proved especially porous against passing teams a year ago. This past week Young has turned his attention to begin installing the ’09 offense, but only after seeing some strides on the defensive side of the ball, owing in part, he believes, to having added Steve Heft as his defensive backs coach.
“Between now and camp I’ll be working with our linemen a lot on blocking schemes and with our backs and quarterbacks on timing,” Young said. “By the time we get to camp we’ll be finishing up with a new passing system where the quarterback is going to need to make reads off the defense. Other than that, it’s going to be another couple of weeks of conditioning drills, or pure torture as I like to think of it.”
Spelling success…
Looking down the road toward the upcoming season, Young first speaks modestly in terms of goals, saying, “I want to win week one (at home against Pawnee Heights). That’s all I’ve thought about since the end of last season…but I guess my goal is to win more than three games this year. We have good enough athletes to do that.”
After further prompting the former Emporia State linebacker spells out what a successful season will look like for him.
“To win seven games and make the playoffs,” he says. “Anything less than that and I’ll be disappointed. That’s what it will take to spell success for us.”
(Next week The Signal takes a look at how much the Rangers will miss the four starters that graduated in May, how Young rates the other five teams in his district as well as the various areas of his team’s offense and defense, and which players will likely fill the various positions on offense and defense.)
