Point After: Area Coaches Making An Impact
Few could argue that Liberty's Tommy Buzzo has done one of the best coaching jobs of the year. His Eagles are one game away from playing for the championship. They take on Dinwiddie on Saturday in the state semifinals. Stone Bridge's Mickey Thompson has the top ranked team in the region, and they face Phoebus on Saturday at 1:30pm in the state semifinals.
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Broad Run's Michael Burnett has taken the Spartan football program to the state playoffs for the first time. Burnett and the Spartans are 22-1 in their last 23 games. Broad Run will play Chancellor in the state semifinals on Saturday at 2pm.
Photo By: Jan Johnson / Gameday Magazine
After a 5-5 season, Oakton's Joe Thompson turned his team around and they sit 13-0 right now. Thompson is the son of a basketball coach, and he credits his father with helping to shape his coaching career. Oakton will host Oscar Smith on Saturday at 1:30pm in the state semifinals....
Photo By: Gameday Magazine
STERLING, VA - First, let me say that forecasting the outcome of games is much tougher when you get into the championship contests. Both teams are usually very good, and both coaching staffs are usually the best around. That makes for some unpredictable variables.
But something struck me this weekend when I studied how Stone Bridge, Oakton, Liberty, Osbourn, and Broad Run advanced to the state playoffs. The reason for their success you ask? The simple answer is this, when you pair great talent with great coaching, championship football is the bi-product. .
Stone Bridge's Mickey Thompson, Oakton's Joe Thompson, Liberty's Tommy Buzzo, Osbourn's Steve Schultze, and Broad Run's Michael Burnett are coaching this week because they know football, and they know how to win. These coaches deserve tremendous praise for reaching the state playoffs, but what they stand for as people is why their teams are continually playing for championships.
I consider UCLA basketball coaching legend John Wooden to be the greatest coach of all time in any sport. His teams won 10 national championships, and an amazing 7 consecutive titles from 1966 to 1973. Under Wooden's leadership, UCLA won a record 19 conference championships. His Bruins still hold the record for the most consecutive wins at 88 straight games.
You might be wondering why I'm talking about Wooden in this column, but I assure you there is a point here. Wooden was a great basketball coach, but his true greatness was how he molded his players into men. Still today, many coaches use Wooden's quotes about topics like leadership, character, integrity, and teamwork.
I've picked out 5 quotes from Coach Wooden that I believe are relevant to the 5 coaches I mentioned above. To me, they highlight the approach to how each has built their program into a winner.
"Things turn out best for people who make the best out of the way things turn out." - John Wooden
In 2005, Oakton's Joe Thompson led a Cougar team to top of the mountain, winning the school's first state championship in football. However, over the next two seasons his program struggled to get back on top. In fact in 2007, Oakton missed the playoffs completely. But Thompson, a man of integrity and character, never relented. He stayed true to the course on how to motivate his players, and relied on his outstanding assistants to develop what is now one of the most prolific teams in the state. This Oakton team is dangerous because they have perspective. They know what it is like to struggle, and now, they know the taste of success. The Cougars played with a passion on Saturday that I haven't seen in many teams over the past few years. I walked away from Cougar Stadium with the feeling that Oakton believes greatness is their destiny, and the man responsible for that is Thompson. His ability to keep his kids believing that greater days were ahead is the primary reason why Oakton is one step from another shot at a title.
"Winning takes talent, to repeat takes character." - John Wooden
Certainly for Stone Bridge's Mickey Thompson, winning last year's state championship was a dream come true. He watched the program he started from scratch finally complete the journey. While Thompson's legacy was etched in stone that day, his focus turned to keeping his 2008 team on top. The Bulldogs are the most successful program in the state of Virginia over the past 7 years because they do the little things right. I've long been accused by many for being a Stone Bridge homer, and if any of that talk is warranted, it is because I have a great respect for how Thompson runs his program. He puts the kids first, and is always the first to give the credit to his coaching staff. If you attend a Stone Bridge practice, it is obvious that Thompson's message is more than just about X's and O's. He is one of the best at explaining "why" things are supposed to be a certain way, and it goes beyond the field too. His players are respectful, and through the years I would argue that few programs have the close knit unity that Thompson's teams do. They are a family, and they win because of it. If the Bulldogs can win this Saturday against Phoebus, people will print that it is because of their talented players, but a victory will reinforce to me that this team and program truly has tremendous character.
"The main ingredient of stardom is the rest of the team." - John Wooden
Broad Run's Michael Burnett was an unknown commodity in 2006 when he took over the Spartan program that needed a defibrillator. Burnett is a solid X's and O's guy, but in all of my chats with him, he usually focuses on how he tries to make the game fun for his team. The philosophy is working because Broad Run is having fun, and they are 22-1 in their last 23 games. If there is one theme that Burnett digs in on, it is that the team comes first, all of the time. Take Burnett's star tailback Breon Earl. Earl is the best player in this region that I've seen this year, and yet his stats are nowhere near where they could be. What's impressive is, Burnett has every Spartan on board with caring about two things, winning and having fun. They don't care about how many passes they throw, carries they get, or catches they make, they just want to win. His players will run through a wall for him because he is sincere about making sure they enjoy their experience. We thought last year was the greatest year in Broad Run football history, and now we know, there are bigger things to come with Burnett at the helm.
"The most important key to achieving great success is to decide upon your goal and launch, get started, take action, move." - John Wooden
For those of you who don't know Liberty's head coach Tommy Buzzo, let me give you some insight into one of the best coaches in the area. First of all, Coach Buzzo is what I would call "High Energy". He eats, sleeps, and breathes Liberty football, and one 15 minute conversation with him will get you ready to put on the pads. He is one of the great motivators in the coaching profession, and if you ask any coach that has the Eagles on their schedule if they play hard, the answer is always yes. Buzzo's mentality is simple, if there is wall there, let's run through it. His 2008 Eagles have run through a big wall this season, making the playoffs for the first time since 2003. That stat is misleading though, as Buzzo's teams in recent years have been very successful. In fact, in 2006, they finished 9-1, but because of what I would argue was a flawed playoff system in Division 4, the Eagles were left at home in the post-season. The truth is, the playoffs need a Tommy Buzzo team in them because his teams are always playing their best football toward the end of the season. Buzzo's goal is to be the best, and he expects every person wearing the jersey, the coaching polo, and the broadcast headsets in the booth to be the best too. The Eagles might not have entered the playoffs as a title contender, but don't look now because Liberty could very well be playing for all the marbles a week from Saturday. While some would be shocked if that happened, anyone that knows Buzzo, including me, is not remotely surprised.
"Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be." - John Wooden
The coach that might best fit this quote is Osbourn's Steve Schultze. Schultze has already proven that he is one of the best after winning the 2006 state championship. But his 2008 coaching job has been just as impressive if you ask me. His Osbourn team struggled out of the gate, but with a 2-3 record and the Liberty Eagles next on their schedule, the Eagles started to turn their season around. Schultze altered his spread offense by implementing the Single Wing. With his speedy tailback Jerell McFadden as the centerpiece, Schultze's team began to mold into one of the toughest in the Northwest Region. It can be hard for coaches to completely change their schemes in mid-season, but Schultze showed us that being able to learn from earlier failures and making adjustments is what coaching is all about. His Eagles have the most losses of any team left in the state playoffs, but I'm sure Schultze would tell you those losses were more valuable than the wins. Osbourn made the right changes mid-season, and because of it, they just knocked off the top two seeds in the region in consecutive weeks. With only Varina standing in their way to another title appearance, the Eagles are one of the great stories of the 2008 football season.
Teams get hot in the post-season, and so do the players making the plays on the field. However, when you look at how these teams have reached the state playoffs, it is easy to see that the coaching they are receiving is making the difference. Thankfully for Northern Virginia football fans, these guys are coaching our teams on Saturday.....
John Wooden was an innovator, and yet his philosophies were simple in nature.
His Pyramid of Success is still one of the most popular motivational tools used in business and in sports.
Wooden said, "Success is a peace of mind which is a direct result of self satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best of which you are capable." Click here to read more of John Wooden's Pyramid of Success and Leadership Tools.....www.coachwooden.com
