Building a Tradition by Brian Wical

Top 30 things I learned as a 1st Year Head Coach - Part 1

by Brian Wical

Cardinal Stritch Catholic High School Head Football Coach

Follow @CoachWical

Originally when I had the idea of sharing all of the lessons that I learned this season, I wanted to rank everything, 1-30. However, I soon discovered after brainstorming topics, it was too hard to actually list them in any kind of order, ranking one ahead of another. Therefore, I am just going to write about each one in the order that I came up with them. Some of these topics you may read the topic of the lesson and say: “no kidding”. My advice to that is: you don’t truly realize everything that is going to face you, until you have faced it. Meaning, on the outside looking in, you may think you have prepared for all situations that may come up during the season. However, I can tell you, once the season starts, things happen that catch you off guard or in the “heat of battle”. Looking back, you may want to approach some of those situations differently next time. I can tell you, that surely happened to me this year, and I hope you enjoy my list of lessons learned and advice from the first year of being a head coach.

1. Assign travel jobs to assistant coaches for game nights

Perhaps the first mistake I made this season was not assigning jobs to assistant coaches when we prepared to travel on game nights. Luckily, it never came to hurt us during an actual game because I learned my lesson over the course of two scrimmages. As an assistant coach, the head coach always told me what I had to make sure got done, and I did it. At my previous job, it was charging the sideline headsets and making sure they were packed and ready to go on Friday nights. Assistant coaches all had their job. Well, I thought I could handle it all, heading to the first scrimmage. That was until we got off the bus and someone asked me where the ball bag was. We showed up to the first scrimmage without footballs. Lesson learned: don’t do that again! This could have all been avoided if I would have assigned the different tasks required when you travel to my staff.

2. As a teacher and a head coach, PLAN AHEAD

Maybe my situation was unique (due to my age) but one of the hardest things for me this season was planning as both a teacher and a Head Football Coach. This was my first year as a teacher as well as my first year as a head coach. The time commitment to both positions is huge. My advice would be to finish whatever planning is needed for the beginning of the football season as early in the summertime as possible for you. As soon as you finish that (because chronologically it comes first) turn your attention to lesson planning. By doing this, you will you have more time to do the week-to-week planning and operations that come with being a head coach during your free periods. This is another mistake I made and as a result, I felt like I was constantly playing catch up with my classroom materials. Obviously, having a lot of the planning side of things done in both worlds will make next year much simpler. However, if I had to do it over again, I would have had many of the things I needed for my classroom done ahead of time, which would have allowed for more time on Hudl during my free periods in-season.

3. Teach fundamentals, all the time

One thing that is important is never getting away from the fundamentals of football. All great football teams, at every level from midget to the NFL, are comprised of players who are fundamentally sound. The other common factor that all of those successful teams have are coaches that continually stress fundamentals to their players. Coming into last season, I knew the players at Cardinal Stritch were behind fundamentally compared to some of the other teams in our league and on our schedule. To build a solid foundation for our program, this was mission number one: improve and stress the importance of fundamentals. While I figured it wouldn’t necessarily show up a ton in the results of our games last year, I knew it would show up next year and in future seasons. Sometimes while stressing those basics, you can take your lumps while the players are still developing. Trust me, we took some. But I continued to tell our players every single day that there is a certain “process” that comes with being a good football program. To achieve the goals we have for the entire program, we needed to stay the course and stay positive, regardless of the early results. I think we did an excellent job doing that. Our kids never gave up the entire season, and our players lived through the idea of  “Always Compete”. For that, I couldn’t be happier. I believe that we will see the positive results of stressing the fundamentals so much this season when we take the field August 29, 2014.

4. Junior players won’t lead the way you want them to

Last season, I was the 3^rd coach in 4 seasons for the senior class. There were only 3 seniors returning, and we were able to get 3 more to join the roster in the offseason, leaving us with just 6 total. Needless to say, a lot of those guys were confused at how they were to lead due to the conflicting philosophies and the amount of coaches they had over the course of their career. The junior class last year had decent numbers and most of our starting positions were filled with them. I knew getting them to buy in and lead would be critical for the long-term success of Cardinal Stritch football. Because of this, I put a lot of responsibility and leadership roles on the players in that class. The problem that I discovered is that junior players will never quite lead the way you want them to, for a multitude of reasons. The biggest reason is that they are juniors, not seniors. Don’t get me wrong; some of the best leaders on the team were juniors last season. Having said that though, they were not leading up to their full potential. I chalk this up to the fact that there is a group ahead of them that are viewed as leaders because of seniority. As many coaches know, seniority is the lowest level of leadership. But, it is also the biggest enemy to players in lower classes leading. I found a leadership ladder in a football magazine last summer (I don’t remember which one) that I duplicated and have hanging on my wall. It is a phenomenal representation of the leadership levels that exist and what we wish to see as coaches from our players. I would be glad to share this with anyone who wishes.

5. Have a program for punishment in-season

I think that one of the best things that we accomplished last season was the creation of what we called “Character Club”. This was a group the kids learned quickly they did not want to be apart of. We used this to punish kids for being late to practice, receiving detentions in school, or any other general violations of our team rules and discipline policy. Our Strength and Conditioning Coordinator ran this after practice any day it was needed. It took on a life of its own throughout the school where students began teasing teachers they were going to get Character Club and it even had it’s own Twitter page at one point. It went a long way in promoting our discipline structure and the kids found out after one or two visits, they were going to clean up their behavior, arrive on time, etc. I would suggest everyone having some form of program in place that the kids fear being a part of and truly want nothing to do with. Extra work after practice is usually an easy way to fix many problems that arise in high school football, I have found.

6. Use the same terminology in every aspect of your program

One thing I noticed early on in the summer camp is that our coaches were using different phrases and terminology to describe the exact same concepts. The number one example of this was tackling. We would run a 4-station tackling circuit at the beginning of defensive practice, in which we would stress the different aspects of tackling at each one (if this is something you don’t currently do, I would suggest doing it). However, as I would walk around station-to-station I noticed that our coaches were describing things using a different terminology. All of the things that they were teaching our kids were great, but if you approach the same skill in different ways, confusion sets in quickly for 14-18 year old boys. We fixed this immediately as a staff and it went a long way in helping our kids understand what we were trying to stress to them. My advice is having this discussion in an offseason meeting to make sure that everyone is on the same page. Another area I noticed this in was cadence being used in different individual drills. I heard our OL individual group was using a different cadence than what we actually used in our offense, which might explain their issue with jumping offside early in the season, too. We can’t take for granted that all kids are going to adjust and adapt coach-to-coach or drill-to-drill. Consistency and attention to detail by the players is crucial to success. But, I would argue that the consistency and the level of attention to detail is even more important for the coaching staff.

7. Develop your players as students, athletes, and young men

I think one of the most overlooked aspects in high school sports is the affect it can have on these kids as human beings. A lot of people get caught up in results on the field. I would argue that an even more important task of any coach is turning out quality young people to our society. When I played football growing up, I always heard that the things I learned on the field would impact me in life. At the time, I could not conceive how something I learned while getting knocked to the ground repeatedly on scout team could possibly teach me anything in life. But as most of us adults now know, there are life lessons waiting in football around every corner. My thought though, is if we limit our “life lessons” to only what happens on the football field, we are doing a disservice to our players. As a result, doing team service projects are important in the development, too. It is a great time for the kids to bond outside of the traditional football structure, as well as potentially see a side of people and life they may not have the opportunity to see otherwise. I wrote a blog last summer about our service project day and my thoughts on it then, so I wont go too much into the specifics. Showing students that giving of your time, talent, and resources to others will hopefully help in developing better young men. Another way you can help develop great young men is by holding them accountable in your program. The quicker they learn they can’t get away with the little stuff, the better off they will be. That translates to better behavior in school and in public. The phrase I tell our players all the time is: “Remember, when you’re out in public you represent our high school and this football program. If you do something stupid, it not only reflects poorly on you, but us as a team and our school.” Overall, we have great young men here at Cardinal Stritch Catholic and we will continue to do our best in developing them into contributing members of our society. But remember, all kids need guidance in the right direction. It is our responsibility to do this as well.

8. Keep your youth programs excited and make them feel appreciated

Turning around a program is a tough job. One thing you have to do when taking over a job that needs an entire program built is determine what things you feel like are absolutely critical to you accomplishing that goal. A big priority from day one for me has been making sure we are developing our young athletes appropriately in our youth program. I think if you were to look at many of the successful programs around our country, most of them would have one thing in common: a great youth program either affiliated with their high school or one in their community in which they draw athletes from. When I took the job here, the 5^th/6^th grade program didn’t win a game in 2012 and there was no 7^th/8^th grade team. Those two areas we needed to address. The coaching staff at our 5^th/6^th grade level this past season did a tremendous job and led that team to a Toy Bowl Championship. However, we still did not have enough kids to play a 7^th/8^th grade schedule. To accommodate this, our elementary school combined our 7^th/8^th graders with another local Catholic elementary school in order to field a team. This was great because we still had kids playing and improving, they did not lose a year because of poor numbers. The exciting news I have though is that we now have enough kids interested that next season we will be fielding both a 5^th/6^th and 7^th/8^th grade team through our school. All of the positives of this cannot be measured in words. The ability for us to integrate some of our high school plays and terms with that team will speed up the learning curve of the players when they join the high school team in 9^th grade. My advice to all that may find themselves one day taking over a struggling program is: make sure you do everything in your power to create a successful youth program. Another thing to remember about this age group is that success is not always defined by wins and losses. While it is fun for the coaches and kids to win, it has no real correlation to varsity level success. What you need to make sure is happening is that fundamentals are being taught appropriately, that way you have to spend less time teaching fundamentals and more time perfecting them when they do arrive in high school.

9. Have designed competitions in practice

I think one way to make sure that you are constantly getting the most out of your kids in practice is to have competitions. It is not hard to turn regular drills into competitions for your players. You don’t always have to do this, but it should be something that happens on a daily basis once, at least. If you are at a bigger school, have your offense and defense go live head-to-head. We liked to split the team in half and do an Oklahoma Drill and have consequences for the losing team (like more sprints). Another thing we did a few times is we had two assistant coaches serve as captains and draft teams. The two teams then played a live scrimmage against one another. The kids really got into this. This was dual serving, too. Obviously, they were competing and the kids didn’t want to be on the losing team. The other thing it did is force us to use the entire roster at once. Our back up QB got to take reps using our offense in a scrimmage-like situation. The back up running back was the running back on one of the teams, etc. This gave scrimmage downs to your entire roster, rather than kids playing scout team the whole time. We only did this 3 times but it was great for our team and our coaches. Kids not only got valuable reps they may have missed in a traditional “team” session, and as coaches we got the chance to re-evaluate some players mid-season.

10. Continue to have coaches meetings throughout the season

One thing I messed up on was having periodic meetings with coaches to make sure we were all still on the same page throughout the season. Another lesson I learned this season and something I will be changing next year. I am not referring to weekly game planning meetings, but rather a separate session where you sit down and truly gain positive/negative feedback from your assistants on the direction of the team, specific players, etc. It is also a great way for you to correct anything you see certain coaches doing that you would like changed or stopped. I had one of these meetings halfway through the season and it went a long way in helping our coaching staff understand my expectations as well as gave me great insight as to their thoughts and feelings, too. My only regret is not having more of them. This would be an easy thing to include in a game-planning meeting if you have those with your staff on the weekends, as well. 

Editor's Note: Brian Wical just competed his first year as the head football coach at Cardinal Stritch High School outside of Toledo, Ohio in the town of Oregon. At 25-years old, Coach Wical is one of the youngest head football coaches in America.  Throughout the 2013 season, Coach Wical gave readers an inside perspective of what it's like to build a tradition at a school that has had only ten victories since 2007.

Building a Tradition: A Wrap on 2013 and looking ahead to 2014

by Brian Wical
Cardinal Stritch Catholic High School Head Football Coach
Follow @CoachWical

Wow! My first season at Cardinal Stritch (and as a head coach) is now in the books. There were some positive things that happened, some negative things that happened, and some extremely unexpected things, too. Unfortunately, the season didn’t go the way I had hoped or even expected. There were so many learning experiences that occurred too, and I am very thankful for that. As life often times has it, those lessons usually occurred at inopportune times or in a very rough manner.

Our record this year (0-10) was not indicative of the strides we made as a football program in 2013. The positives: We increased the average weight room attendance from 8 the year before I arrived to 18 per day in the summer (we had 34 players on the roster) and genuinely had kids excited to play football for Cardinal Stritch. We learned what it meant to “Always Compete” and for the most part, did that in every game, winning or losing. We learned that it is not okay to quit on a game, a workout, or practice rep. Our kids improved their fundamentals in the areas of blocking and tackling. We laid a foundation that, despite the wins and losses this year, is going to help us build a solid, winning football program at Stritch. The negatives: Obviously, we lost all ten games. We got blown out BADLY in 3 of those games. Our blocking and tackling is still not where it needs to be as a coaching staff. Our special teams were downright pitiful. We were -29 in turnover margin on the season (ouch, I know!).

To summarize our 10 losses: 3 were ugly (56-6, 63-7, 69-7), 2 we competed until halftime (25-0 and 32-0) and then ran out of gas, and 5 we competed until the very end (losses coming by 6, 5, 14, 7, and 4.
 

We never really established an identity on offense and being the leader of the “O” I take full responsibility for that. We started running EXACTLY the same things we did when I was at Lima Central Catholic (one offset back, 2 wings). I figured out about two weeks into practice that our short yardage set (split backs) was our best offense at the time, and I decided to feature that primarily. We went into scrimmages mixing the split back veer with jet sweep concepts. We went with a tight end and then without a tight end (all changes I thought would help us, at the time). Then we went back to the original philosophy after week 2. Then all of the sudden I realized we couldn’t pass protect or run block, so we put quads receivers out and rolled our QB out to make him a mobile target. We then evolved into the I-formation mixed with 2x2 and Quads. If it seems like we were all over the place, well, we were. I learned very quickly that when you have had success, and then all of the sudden you’re not, human instincts kick in. My human instincts in this situation were to change our philosophies until something worked. Unfortunately, nothing really did. Part of that is probably because I was asking our kids to do things they physically couldn’t, another part of that is that we changed just enough concepts that we never got the opportunity to master anything. You can only beat your head into the wall so many times before deciding for a change here or there, though. It should be noted that none of these changes were full-scale offensive scheme changes. Rather we ran the same plays we had taught all season long, just out of different formations.
 

I learned a very valuable lesson: special teams matter. Now don’t get me wrong, I totally understood this concept before this season, I talked about it all the time. But never have I appreciated good special teams more than I do after watching ours this season. You could definitely argue that, despite all the turnovers we had, in 3 of those 5 close games if our special teams would have executed better we would have won them.

My goal by telling the narrative above is not to show you how indecisive I was at times this year or to give you the impression that I am not a good football coach. My goal is to inform you of what can happen in your first year as a head coach so hopefully many others don’t follow in the same footsteps as me when you get your first opportunity. The goal of this blog series was to give everyone an inside look at both aspects of building a football program and what it is like to be a first year head football coach. Because of this, I am going to launch a mini-series within my “Building a Tradition” series that will outline the top-30 things I took away from this season as a first-year head football coach. I will release them in 3 waves, counting down from 30-20, 19-10, and 9-1. I will go in depth as to the lessons I learned (both good and bad). Then, I will start giving you an inside look at our offseason program and what we are doing this year to make sure we start to build the next level of our program. 

Building a Tradition - Summer Camp, Day 3

by Brian Wical
Cardinal Stritch High School Head Football Coach
Follow @CoachWical

After two days of camp last week, Cardinal Stritch took the field Monday morning for the third time. Monday was our best day yet, which is good. I told the team that at the end of each practice, I should be standing there telling them that today was the best day yet.

We started the day off doing a tackling drill to wake our guys up, since we were starting at 7:30 this morning. The drill was fantastic, in that it really helped serve its purpose. Our players really got into it. It is always great as a coach seeing your kids enthusiastic and excited to be out there practicing as team. 

Defensively, our players started demonstrating knowledge of our scheme on Monday. Not just knowledge but mastery of the front. My defensive coordinator, Gary Allen, refused to move forward in the teaching process until our guys understood our base alignment, mixed with all of the defensive coverage’s that we will run. After Monday’s practice, I know he feel confident moving on to the next phase in the installation plan. 

We held a kicking tryout yesterday during or mid-practice break. We literally had no kicker on the roster left over from last season, and being new to the school, I didn’t really know capabilities of our kids in terms of kicking. I had all of the players kick XPs and also kickoff. We have narrowed our search down from the entire team to about six guys. Today we will try to narrow that down to two kids that we will really work with on our FG/XP teams.

 

Offensively, we also put together a complete practice. This is a great thing because on Friday, I thought we lost our focus for the last 30 minutes of the offense. We struggled completing our pass routes against air, even. Monday, the kids really came out ready to improve though, and it showed. We are grasping the offensive plays, formations, and overall philosophy much better than I thought we would, to be honest. I thought it would take us longer to grasp our offense than it would our defense. So far, it has proven to be the opposite.

 

Today, we come back with another camp day in the morning. We are then going to go against Toledo Waite and Toledo Scott at night in a 7-on-7. It will be good for us for a few reasons. First, we can run our routes against other athletes that don’t know the plays ahead of time. Also, we will see if we can cover anybody on defense. These two schools are well over twice our enrollment. I am anxious to see how we compete.

 

I will update later today after the 7-on-7.

Building a Tradition - Summer Camp, Day 1

by Brian Wical
Cardinal Stritch High School Head Football Coach
Follow @CoachWical

In Ohio, we are allowed to coach our kids in the summer months (June 1- July 31) for 10 days. How you use those days is really up to the individual coach/program. Some teams like to participate in a lot of 7-on-7 tournaments and events; others prefer to use theirs as practice days. Personally, I think they are best served as practice days, with a few 7-on-7’s mixed in, too.

I like the idea of backing the camp days up as close to the start of two-a-days as possible. This essentially gets us 2 additional weeks of two-a-day-like practices to teach our kids the offensive/defensive systems and philosophies. We will use two of our days to essentially do nothing but 7-on-7’s as we will be going to Lima Central Catholic High School one day, and we will compete in the Bucyrus Redmen 7-on-7 and Lineman Challenge another. We will do a third 7-on-7 in the evening one other day as well, and camp in the morning. 

With all the background of Ohio and its rules, and our schedule, lets get into Day 1 of camp. We came out ready to learn and were excited. I couldn’t ask for better enthusiasm to begin practice from our kids. It was hot with the temperature topping out in the mid-90’s as we began practice. The enthusiasm displayed by both our players and coaching staff was as high as you would like to see during the first 45 minutes of defensive practice. We then hit a little bit of a lull where our focus went out the window and we weren’t putting forth the effort we would like to see. The good news is that it was only Day 1. At the mid-practice break, I challenged our guys to come out for offensive practice ready to learn and put a complete practice together. 

After the break we started off slow as coaches, just going through our formation and adjustments, and how we align. It was a good session for our kids just to sit back and learn. 

I saw some really great signs offensively. Our timing on our snap count and motions needs a lot of work still, but to be honest, I have seen much worse first days in this offense, which is promising. Our guys need to understand that there is a solid foundation that is being built, but we are nowhere near where we need to be yet. I am very confident we will be better as we continue to get more practices under our belt and grasp why we are doing the things we are. 

Needless to say, I am excited to get out there today for Day 2 and watch as our football team develops and starts to experience more success on the practice field.

New Beginnings - 1st annual Ironman Competition at Cardinal Stritch

Coach Wical stands with the individual grade winners from the 2013 Cardinal Stritch Ironman Competition.
(L to R): Coach Wical, Joe Sinay, Grant Curavo, Stephen Materni, Drew Beier

by Brian Wical
Cardinal Stritch High School Head Football Coach
Follow @CoachWical

If you have been following my blogs at all, you will know that a big characteristic that I talk about often is the ability to compete. Our offseason workout program/competition is called “Always Compete”, which is also a motto for our program at Cardinal Stritch. The culmination of all of the work that we have put in takes place at one competition at the end: the Ironman Competition. 

This is an idea that I stole from my playing days in high school. The head coach at Lima Central Catholic High School back then was a man by the name of Andy Etzkorn. He always ran and competition at the end of the summer for us to show how much we had gained during the offseason each year. As a coach, I have had no experience doing this nor did I remember many of the events he used to include in his competition. Having said that, when I put together the offseason plan for us this year, I knew I needed to have an event like this. 

The premise is that there is 13 events, a mixture of some weight lifting challenges, running events, and some other random events thrown in as well. To me, this is a great chance for us to get physical measurements on a lot of our players, while giving them a chance to have fun and compete as well.

 

The guys came in ready to compete, and we even had one of our sophomores, Abel Castillo, get into the competition spirit by wearing an Ironman t-shirt. I could tell all of our guys were excited to be there and to compete. This is a major upgrade from the attitude just a month and a half ago from our players, even.

 

It was an extremely tight race down the stretch, and literally came down to the wire. The final event, a 1-mile run was the determining factor for the overall winner. Going in, junior QB/LB Joe Sinay had a one-point edge on sophomore WB/OLB Grant Curavo. Grant ended up beating Joe in the event by just 14 seconds. This was enough points to edge Joe in the overall competition by a single point, 296-295.

 

Not only do we award an overall winner, but then each grade has its own winner as well. The winners this year ended up being: Overall & Sophomore- Grant Curavo (WB/OLB), Senior- Stephen Materni (OL/DL), Junior- Joe Sinay (QB/LB), and Freshman- Drew Beier (WB/DB).

 

I believe all of our kids competed to a level much higher than they even thought possible 6 weeks ago. This is very promising as we move into our 10 coaching days at the end of next week. I told our guys this at the end of the day: “you have put in more work than anyone in recent memory at Cardinal Stritch. The good news is, you out worked some teams with bad records. The bad news is, you’ve still not won a game. The key now is can we take this momentum and hardwork and translate that into our practices as they begin.”

 

I think our players have the desire to be a better football program and to win. I tell them all the time though; no one wants to win more than I do. The closer they can get my competitive level, the more success this football team will have moving forward.

 

The foundation has been laid for this program, and now it is time for us to start building upon that. Only three more days until we take the practice field!

Coach Wical and Overall champion Grant Curavo after 2013 Cardinal Stritch Ironman Competition

Brian Wical is in his first year as the head football coach at Cardinal Stritch High School outside of Toledo, Ohio in the town of Oregon. At 25-years old, Coach Wical is one of the youngest head football coaches in America.  Throughout the 2013 season, Coach Wical will give readers an inside perspective of what it's like to build a tradition at a school that has had only ten victories since 2007.