Program Notes from

Coach David Owen

Beyond the Xs and Os

“A physical expression of a mental exercise.” Vince Lombardi

Taking an idea and reducing it to a complication of Xs and Os on a piece of paper and then imparting that vision to a group of players who then translate those Xs and Os into a full-chorus live ballet, choreographed and performed with precision in an uncontrolled and hostile environment, requires a contract (a cooperative partnership of coach and player), motivation, commitment, desire, trust, respect, patience, perseverance, conflict, teamwork,sacrifice, dedication, hard work and pain.

It is a high price to pay for the experience of transforming the symbols of a coach's imagination into an exhilarating mixture of coordination and chaos, predictability and spontaneity, execution and mayhem, but it must be worth it.

Or we wouldn't continue to enjoy it.

Youth Football and the Hippocratic Oath

Before the simple anatomy and physiology of blocking and tackling, and the drills pursuant to attaining the surgical precision and operating-room teamwork of running and passing and defence, the art and execution of coaching not quite yet mature minds and bodies has, in common with the science and convention of medicine, a requirement of the various practitioners to ever observe the credo:

“First do no harm”.

Setting Goals

Team goals are important. I have seen several lists compiled by different teams. They generally include worthy, statistic-based game-day objectives — yards, completions, tackles — but I suggest two more general life goals which when applied to football result in a fair measure of success:

1. Learn something every day. 2. Improve every day.

“There is one thing you can count on. You can work every day to improve. If, at the end of the day, you did not improve you are not doing a good job. If you did, you are on target to succeed.”

Hayden Fry of the University of Iowa

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