Coaching Advice Goes With Being a Football Coach

Another season of football is upon us.
Coaches are likely a little anxious ahead of the new season.
The coaching profession is one of those fields where people freely lend advice.
So we asked several local coaches what’s some of the best advice they ever got.
And maybe…some of the worst advice.

Said McCallie head coach Ralph Potter:”I guess my dad always said you’ve got to be yourself you know. You can’t ever try to be somebody else. I think a lot of people coming up through coaching do that. They have role models or mentors or somebody they played for. Somebody they here about. So they try to be that person, and I don’t think you can do that.”
Said Sale Creek head coach Jason Fitzgerald:”Build a relationship with your players. Don’t worry about the scheme. Don’t worry about anything else. Build that relationship with the players. If you can build that relationship with the players, then they’ll play hard for you. If they play hard for you, then you’ll have a chance to be successful.”
Said Signal Mountain head coach Josh Roberts:”The best advice I ever got is always adapt everything to the kids that you have that year. Once you learn the kids personalities and stuff then you gain relationships with them.”
Said South Pittsburg head coach Wes Stone:”Coach Don Grider the late coach Don Grider when I was a sophomore. Now I don’t know how much I adhere to that advice now because he told me one time. He said when you pass, three things can happen, and two of them are bad. One is a drop and one is an interception. I go back to our last game in the playoffs last year. We had some drops, and we had an interception. So I thought about him a lot that night.”
Said Chattanooga Mocs head coach Rusty Wright:”Make sure you change your shoes every day. Don’t wear the same shoes every day. You’ve got to take care of your feet man. It’s the biggest thing during camp. We’re on them a lot. It’s a lot different. I’ll have a different pair of shoes on tonight. I’ll have a different pair of shoes on tomorrow morning. You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do to survive that.”
Said Fitzgerald:”Worst coaching advice. And really it’s the offensive coordinator that gets the advice because everybody thinks they can call plays. We’ve talked about it over the years maybe just putting. What do we call it. An offensive suggestion box in the stands, and then see after the game what everybody wants to run.”