I am hoping to do this segment- "Old School Coaches" on a regular basis. I have put together a crew of retired coaches, who were highly successful in their high school coaching career. My hope is to post one question to them every two weeks.
Bob Anderson- Williamsfield HS
Bob is retired as boys basketball coach at Williamsfield. At a school of only 89 students, in 45 years, his teams won 732 games along with numerous tourney and conference championships. His 1997 team made it to the Elite 8.
Mike Cooper- Ottawa HS
Mike is the retired Athletic Director at Ottawa HS. He was varsity girls basketball coach for 22 years, as well as sophomore football coach for many years. He was inducted in the the IBCA HOF.
Tim Engebretson- United HS
He was varsity head football coach for many years at United HS. He also has coached basketball at different levels. His 2005 team won the Illinois State Title, and Tim is in the Illinois Football Coaches' HOF as well as the United HOF.
Greg King- Sterling HS
In his head coaching career at Sterling, his football teams went 78-28, and had 10 straight play-off appearances and 5 conference titles. In addition to his success as a football coach, he was inducted in the Illinois Athletic Director's Association HOF.
Mark Massey- Clinton HS
Mark was the head volleyball coach at Clinton for 38 years. His teams won 818 games, and twice took second in State. He is in the Iowa Volleyball HOF and Clinton HS HOF.
Thom Sigel- Rock Falls/Rock Island HS
Thom coached basketball for 32 years. His teams won 502 games, and he has the distinction of winning the State Title at both Rock Falls and Rock Island. Thom is in the IBCA HOF.
Mike Tracey- Alleman, UTHS, Moline HS
Mike coached football at Alleman, UT, and Moline for over 20 years. By most, he is considered the premier football coach in WB6 history. His teams won 140 games, and twice finished second in State. Mike is in the Alleman HS HOF and the Illinois Football HOF. He was also selected Illinois AD of the Year.
Tom Wierzba- Farmington HS
Tom coached basketball for 38 years, coaching 26 years at Farmington. At Farmington, his teams won 7 sectionals and made 5 trips to State, including a third place and fourth place finish. For his career, his teams won 611 games. In addition, he coached softball at Farmington for 10 years- going 225-50. His softball teams won the State title twice and took fourth once. He has been inducted into both the IBCA and Greater Peoria Sports HOF's.
My Question
I labelled this bi-weekly post as "Old School Coaches." What do you think "old school" means? Would you have considered yourself to be old school?
Mike Tracey- Alleman, UTHS
I think the term old-school today carries a negative connotation. When people hear the term old-school, I think the assumption is that the coach is behind the times in modern coaching offense, defense, techniques, etc.
When I think of the term old school in relation to today's sports, I think it could mean disciplined, demanding, concerned about the players on and off the school and possibly a coach who simplifies and teaches in a different manner than today's coaches.
There are many great coaches today who are not old-school coaches, but have some of the old-school values that they combine with their efficient and modern teaching techniques. I think for any sports program to be successful, consistent, something the parents and school district can be proud of , needs to have an element of old school coaching as the foundation. Ultimately whether you are old-school or new age, you must make the program about the kids. That is your job as an educator and a teacher. It is not necessary to mimic what everyone sees on TV Saturday and Sunday. Coaches that do what they know , what they know works, and teaches the young men positive values are laying a great foundation for success.
Mark Massey- Clinton
One of the connotations of “old school” can be in terms of player management. In that case, I believe that it’s a negative, Bob Knight comes to mine immediately, or Woody Hayes. Not popular images in terms of the mental health of players.
And other connotation of old school may be more in terms of accountability. So yes, I guess I was or am sort of old school in that. I think I held kids accountable. And I was certainly capable of barking direction and criticism although hopefully not craziness like Bob Knight did.
I think old school may also at times refer to a stubbornness of some coaches to not consider change because “that’s the way we always did it.” I think that there’s a tendency to label anyone who is coaching and over 35 “old school.”
Another positive connotation of old school, maybe be a coach that puts in the time, goes to clinics, scouts opponents extensively, examine statistics for an edge. I think in some ways all of those could be considered old school.?
Mike Cooper- Ottawa
When somebody says somebody is Old School I immediately think of someone who is still doing drills from back in the 70's and 80's and their kids are wearing Chuck Taylor basketball shoes.
I wouldn't consider myself old school but I would consider myself "set in my ways". I had a set way of doing things which started during the preliminary game and carried over to the start of the game. We would do the same set of structured shooting drills during half of the prelim game for all 22 years I coached, it was my time to make sure they were focused and not messing around, I also stood under the basket during pregame warm ups to make sure we were focused. I didn't allow very much unstructured time. I tried to stress to my team that every drill we did had meaning. I also made sure we wore the same warm ups and uniforms, nobody was allowed to wear something that made them stand out from the others on the team.
As structured as I was, I did find time to have fun with them and make them feel part of my family with my wife and son. We would have regular pizza parties and celebrate Christmas at my house which the team really enjoyed and you got to see the players in a more relaxed setting. There is a time to work and when that time is up it has to be an atmosphere kids enjoy being part off.
Bob Anderson- Williamsfield
When i think about old school, I think that person is talking about how they did things 30 or 40 years ago or they are talking about how they did things when they were a kid. I might have been old school on a few things, but mostly i tried to stay up with the way things were being done now. that's why I went to clinics and always tried to improve as a coach.
Some of my old school things- On defense cutting off the baseline and keeping the ball in front of you were always big to me. On offense, ball reversal and getting a paint touch always seemed to get us a great shot. These things were always big to me, and I didn't ever change on.
I was probably a little old school with the fastbreak because I always wanted my team to get the ball down the floor as fast as possible. I felt this not only got us some easy baskets but it also put pressure on our opponent's defense and conditioning. Over the course of the game we felt this was an advantage for our team. Fastbreak was something I never changed my belief about.
Thom Sigel- Rock Island
This is an interesting question/topic. The first part of the question about what an old school coach is might make most people think of some coaches we may have had growing up. These could be coaches who were yellers, not as concerned with hurting players' feelings, sticking to the fundamentals, or maybe having the "my way or the highway" philosophy. That may or may not be true, but is seems many might think of coaches like that when asked to describe "old school coaches".
As far as if I could be labeled as an old school coach, I don't know that I believe that to be overly accurate when I look back at what I believe to be an old school coach. However, I think as I see some ways coaching and athletics have changed, I see myself as more old school than I would have thought. While I believe I tried to adapt with the game over the years, I think I tilt more toward old school because of setting high standards, accountability, focusing on fundamentals, and being honest with players even if that is difficult. When I look at some current trends, there are many I am not a fan of, which makes me more old school I suppose: player celebrations for making plays, basing decisions on analytics, having players wear shoes that aren't team colors, players wearing additional gear that isn't part of the uniform, some of the uses of social media, and how much promotion and over-emphasizing is done in youth sports. So I guess my answer is not going to eliminate me from being a part of this "old school coaches" group.
The stereotype of an old school coach would probably be a coach who lacked empathy, and was a drill sergeant. All of us probably could share stories of coaches who may have physically or psychologically abused players, and used profanity to help “make us a man.” I certainly would hope players would say I was not old school in my relationships and treatment of players.
I would like to think that we had a culture centered on relationships between players and relationships between coaches and players. If you work to develop relationships, it allows the TEAM to be the focus. I hope that is what we had.
I prided myself on studying and trying to keep up with the game. While there were certain basics like playing solid man to man defense that I stayed focused on, I was willing to change through the years. So in key areas- relationships and willingness to change- I don’t think I was old school.
I was old school in some areas and I think some of that made our team successful. I believed in
- Offensively being structured, running sets vs free lancing.
- Trying to practice harder than our opponents with defensive drills and conditioning drills which were old school, and certainly not fun.
- Coach is supposed to be available to media and report scores after wins & losses.
- Gear and uniforms should show school pride by being in school colors.
- Professional coaches develop relationships with opposing coaches.
- Professional coaches try to grow and attend clinics.
There are many great young coaches with energy and great ideas. But where I feel the most “old school” is when I look at some young coaches and I don’t see them investing the time to grow professionally like coaches in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s.
Greg King, Sterling
If old school coach means my knees hurt every day…then I am old school. To me old school means rigid, inflexible, or my way or the highway. I was thinking more about this question this weekend when I was watching college game day. I was listening to Nick Saban talk about transactional vs. transformational coaching. Transactional was focused on winning or losing. When you win you can pat others on the back, but it was your plan that did it. When you lose it was because you did not use it as a teaching moment and made it a negative experience. I would admit, when I 1st became a head coach, I was “old school” or transactional. I cared about turning things around. The outcome was what I was worried about. I think that wrongly gets labeled an old school approach. I did care about other things but did I show them? We were very successful my 1st few years and that kept reinforcing that old school transactional mentality.
We were the #1 seed going into the 2005 season. We were upset in the 1st round. We did not play that good…and to be honest I did not coach that good. I sat down that off-season and looked at why? I had to look only 1 place and that was in a mirror. I came in Saban’s words a more transformational coach. I still had old school values that were going to be a part of it…hard work, discipline, fundamentals, etc. After playing for Bob Reade at Augustana…that was not an option in my belief system!
One of the best things we did was we started going to a team camp. We worked on football, but more than that we would have a lot of time to reflect on things. We would read books and have small/team discussions. We read books like Season of life by Joe Ehrmann, Always Compete by Pete Carroll, make the Big Time where You are by Frosty Westering, and also the Last lecture by Randy Bausch. I started to learn more about my players and more importantly I think they started to learn more about me. I learned that 2-3 players parents were going through a divorce. I knew that for these young men, football may not have been their 1st thoughts on the day. A major benefit for me I was having more fun, and I think the players did as well. I was still coaching hard, but was also looking at things from the player’s viewpoint.
The major thing for me, it was not about the outcome, but about the journey. I wanted them to understand, thinking that a scoreboard can determine if you are a winner or loser, is pretty narrow-minded. If you can look into the mirror and say I did my best, that is all that can be expected.
I know I went off on a tangent…but after thinking hard about the question and listening to Nick Saban, to me it went hand in hand. You can still have those old school values, but you also get to have a more personal relationship with your players.
I know I went off on a tangent…but after thinking hard about the question and listening to Nick Saban, to me it went hand in hand. You can still have those old school values, but you also get to have a more personal relationship with your players.
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