jaco;1315061 wrote:I'm a little harsher on Coach Z than some for the simple fact that he inherited a football rich program. Something like seventeen league titles? The question he has to answer is "is the program worse now than when I inherited it?". Simple as that. A zero win season is unacceptable.
To me, handling a program entails involvement in the youth and junior high levels, making sure there are competent coaches and things are being taught the way you wish. Making sure you don't have a total clunker season like this. There might be down years at Waynedale, but not like this latest debacle. If Waynedale is banking on one single class saving the entire program that's wishful thinking and ridiculous to put that burden on a single group of kids. Waynedale football was never about one player, one coach, or one class. It was about a community attitude. Waynedale kids were never the biggest, strongest or fastest, but they'd hit you the minute you stepped off the bus. You knew you'd be in for a street fight. That's been lost somewhere.
JACO, eloquently put. You are so right. It wasn’t about any one coach or player until Z.
JMAR it very obvious that you are passionate about the Waynedale football team. That’s great, & for what it’s worth, I commend your enthusiasm. The one thing though that I have a problem understanding is that you seem so concerned that parents bad mouth Z at home and on this thread and that the kids hear the “chatter” and then take a negative attitude with them to practice and on game night. The one thing you may not have thought about is all the negative talk about the next couple of years. Basically, you and maybe others have completely written off the next couple of years and placed the burden of a vintage Wayndale team solely on the freshman class. What do you think that does to the attitudes of next year’s juniors and seniors? This is one of the major problems I have with Z.
Three years ago he decided that he had 2 sophomores, Stanley & Strausbaugh (starting QB & RB as sophomores) & the rest of this years seniors that would lead Waynedale back to glory and he completely wrote off last years seniors and the seniors in the prior year. He was planning for this year. As I stated in my earlier post, for whatever the reason he didn’t utilize certain players to give lasts years team a chance to be more competitive or the team prior for that matter. Then when this year started off bad it became pretty obvious that the freshmen team was the next in line to carry the torch. What do you think that does to the upper classmen knowing and “hearing” that they don’t have any athletes and no chance of having a winning season next year? Should it motivate them?
It seems to me that now many people are once again willing to give up the next 1 or 2 years for hopes of a winning team when the freshmen class becomes juniors and seniors . That’s not leadership. A good leader makes every player from the fastest to the slowest and from the strongest to the weakest feel as if they have something to offer. With small numbers like we have, any player may only be one injury away from having to go out on the field. All players need to know that their coach has faith in them, but that’s just not the case with Z. I agree the next several years could be rough, but not because there’s no talent, but rather the lack of the type of coaching leadership that is required to get the most out of each player. Confidence can overcome a lot of obstacles, I’m guessing next year’s junior and seniors have very little confidence in themselves because of all the talk about the freshmen class. I could be wrong, it wouldn’t be the first time, but I would hate to think that there will be kids that have played since peewee who don’t go out for the team their junior or senior year because they figure that they don’t stand a chance of getting to compete. There is strength in numbers and if the numbers keep falling or stay small the chance of being a dominanta team is unlikely. Danville was a prime example of that. Several years ago when we played them they were always tough in the beginning of the season, but got wore down and beat up as the season progressed mainly because they didn’t have enough players to go around.
For the kids sake, I hope the Bears can turn it around regardless of who the coach is.