A Feel Bad Moment?

After coming off our first loss of the 8th grade football season, I cannot say that I am disappointed in the boys. Our offense was stellar, we ran the ball well and our passing game was something that really surprised me. For once in my coaching career, our team has an offensive line!

Next week, it has already been decided that we're going to work hard on defense. Our tackling was piss-poor and we simply had no pass defense when the opponent went to the air.

With the other coach away on other business today and the varsity playing an away game tonight, I took over all the players and we had a conditioning day in which all we do is run.

We start off with typical warm-up drills, go into streching, then we do some 40-yard sprints. This -- was just the beginning.

I started off our conditioning with some ladders -- all the way to the 40-yard line. Then, we did some "Geronimo" runs: the players would run the entire circumference of the football field, but the player on the end of the line would sprint to the front until they heard my whistle, then it would start all over again. In the end, I figured they ran close to a mile.

Then, I made the players "sit" in a croutched stance for a minute (all the while they groaned), gave them a break, then made them croutch again for another 30 seconds.

Next, it was time for some "up-downs." The players would stand in place and stomp the ground like mad until I would blow my whistle -- they'd hit the dirt quick, then pop back up -- and start over again. I did "four-quarters" worth of these today, but after 2 quarters, I was starting to wonder if I was pressing them too hard.

We've got a huge lineman, like around 300 pounds, who started to cry. At first, I couldn't figure out what the noise was. He stood there, weeping, saying "I can't do this...", then I started to doubt myself.

I felt bad. I really didn't know what to do right away, but I offered him some help and just asked him some questions. But then I saw something that I hadn't ever seen before on a football field (or even when I was in high school football myself), all the players supported him. The lineman was literally gasping for air, so the other players helped him with his helmet and loosened his shoulder pads. It was the first time that I had felt that this was a true team, everybody supporting each other, no matter what.

This was happening all day long. I would encourage the team to get onto each other a little bit and they did it, plus a little more. It was just so neat to experience, something that really made me proud to be a coach.

We finished the other two quarters of "up-downs" later on, then ran some 100-yard sprints. When the players were coming back on their final 100-yard sprint, the lineman stood up and cheered them on. When all the players came back from sprinting, they all just huddled around the lineman and myself and cheered.

It was just cool as all hell -- just something that made me feel better about myself.