2009 Season to Date

I think when this season started know one really knew what to expect from the Indians. When you return only 7 players with varsity experience it is very difficult to know what kind of potential you have until you play some games. What a surprise this team has been. We are 7-2 and have qualified for the playoffs for the first time since 2006. We have come from behind wins against Linden, Summerville, and Calaveras. We played an extremely talented MC team down to the wire and now have a chance to finish the regular season against a great Escalon team. Everyone said this team was too small, too slow, too inexperienced. The thing is, our kids never believed that. They work hard, practice hard, and have gotten better and better as the season goes on. They have bought into the defining qualities of our program, team, discipline, commitment, character. It has been a fun ride so far and we are not done yet!

2009 Summer Program

It has been a great summer for our program so far. The players are working hard and they are improving everyday. The greatest part of coaching football is to watch the development of our players, not just as football players, but as young men. We ask a lot of our players and work them very hard. Those that buy in get better with every workout and every practice. Improvement doesn't magically happen. It comes a little bit at a time and takes consistent hard work. It is interesting to watch the players that attend our summer program sporadically. They never improve. They don't get any stronger, their conditioning doesn't improve and they don't develop football skills or understand their assignments. They only show up to suffer. It is not rocket science. The best players in our program, or any football program for that matter, are the guys that never mess a workout, a 7 on 7, a practice. They are the hardest workers on the team. We are very excited about what is going on this summer at all levels. We have a very athletic and dedicated group of freshmen, a solid core of sophmores, and a young but athletic and enthusiastic varsity squad. These guys are getting better everyday and it should be a very exciting season for our football program!

2009 Lif-A-Thon

Check out some clips from the lift-a-thon.

Can you feel it?

The 2009 Football season is on it's way! While football may seem a long way off for some, for the RHS football team the season begins on June 8 with our summer workouts. The famous Nebraska coach said 75% of your season is determined in the offseason. That is more true now than ever. Our players will start the season in the best shape of their lives, not wait to get into shape in August. We have a big summer schedule. We have conditioning/fundamentals on M-TH 7:30-9:30am, 7 on 7 on Wed. nights, and varsity team camp on July 14,15,16. Our players and coaches are very excited to get started!

Parent Meeting

Join us on April 28 at 6:00pm in the Multiuse room at RHS for a meeting for all 2009 football players and their parents. We will go over player expectations, the summer program, purchase spirit packs, register for camp etc. There are only 7 weeks until the summer program kicks off!

The Power of Education

It is been a while since my last post. I am taking some online classes to clear my teaching credential and they have been keeping me very busy. One class in particular has been very time consuming. It is call "Dual Language Instruction". The content is very difficult. However, I am finding it very interesting and valuable. It forces me to do a lot of research into how people learn a second language. You might be asking "what does this have to do with football?" My answer is everything! To be a great player, you have to be open to learning. You have to have a "teachable spirit". True education is using every opportunity as a growing experience. Everytime you learn a new play, read a new book, research an interesting topic, it helps you grow as a person. Lou Holtz said, "You are either growing, or you are dying." I truly believe this. It is important we are always trying to improve ourselves. We can always become stronger, fitter, learn something new, try and be a better person, be a better teammate. There is always something we can do to continue to grow as a person. So I ask you, WHAT ARE YOU DOING TODAY TO HELP YOU GROW?

Commitment

This is the time in every season of where athletes start to quit. It is like everything. When we start something new, we are fresh, excited, looking forward to the possibility of success. Everyone needs to feel fulfillment, success. Kids go out for sports thinking they might find them. Unfortunately, when that fulfillment and gratification isn't immediate, it is easy to give up. This is why many people struggle their whole lives looking for it. What people fail to realize that to truly feel gratification, fullfillment, success or whatever you want to call it, it takes a commitment to stick it out once that initial "honeymoon period" wheres off. And it is not good enough to just stick it out. Commitment means more than that. It means sticking it out and continuing to give your BEST effort. If you don't do that, YOU WILL NEVER FEEL SUCCESS, FULLFILLMENT, OR TRUE GRATIFICATION. You will always underachieve. When practice becomes a grind, when we aren't playing as much as you want, when it gets difficult, it is easy to start looking for that next thing where you might find instant gratification. It becomes easy to quit. That is what losers do. Winners dig in, they find a way to dig down and force themselves to give it their all, every day. The see it through to the end. If you quit, no matter what excuse you want to use, you know you failed. When you look at yourself in the mirror, you know it. "Pride is a personal commitment, it is what seperates excellence from mediocrity." So to all of you who are thinking about quitting, look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself, "am I truly giving my best effort every day." If you can't truly follow through on a commitment, you spend your life making empty promises and you will never be all you are capable of. This commercial by Michael Jordan sums it up pretty well. If you quit a sport, or are thinking of quiting, check this out.