Coaching football

By Joe Rector

At the Doyle High School 50th reunion, I saw students whom I didn’t recognize after all these years. However, I did see a few football players who still had features from their teenage years. At DHS and at Karns High School, I coached football.

Those people with whom I grew up probably scoff at my career as a football coach. As a freshman, I played the game. I went through practices, made plenty of mistakes, but for some reason, the coaches thought I was capable of holding down the right guard and linebacker position. To be honest, I think that the coaches credited me for the play of my twin brother. Offensively, the demands of the position made sense. At linebacker, I just watched the linemen come after me and hoped none of them destroyed me.

During sophomore year, I developed headaches bad enough that Mother took me to a neurologist to make sure I didn’t have a serious illness. I didn’t, but my football career ended right then. I became a manager for a couple of years before deciding to go back to band.

My career as a high school football coach began out of necessity. My job wasn’t guaranteed since I was a first-year teacher, so I volunteered to coach the freshmen team. I worked with my good friend Jim Pryor, who had coached varsity ball for several years. We both were working on our master’s degrees at UT, so practices were limited to an hour or a little longer. We kept the boys busy with developing skills and then had some contact drills before scrimmages and running. Jim had played college ball at Maryville, so at least one of us had some experience on game days.

Our freshmen teams performed well. The players seemed to have learned their roles and remained competitive in most games. The last freshman team that I coached (Robby Howard had replaced Jim Pryor by then included some big, strong, aggressive players. I left Doyle in February, but that group of boys had an undefeated senior year, a consequence of hard work and God-given talent.

I again volunteered to coach freshman football at Karns High. Doing so was again an attempt to remain an English teacher for the next year. At KHS, plenty of talent was present, but too much of it walked the halls and left for home after the final bell. Slowly, I begged and cajoled and flattered boys into joining the team. By the last year of coaching, 44 players were on the team. I insisted that freshmen learn the basics of the game. Footwork was the most important aspect, and close behind were blocking and tackling.

During my tour at Karns, I worked for three different coaches. The boys learned the varsity offense and defense, and they learned to enjoy the game. My promise to them was that if they showed up to practice that they would play in games. I had four teams set up on both sides of the ball. Yes, winning was important, but I decided my job was to teach fundamentals and the offense and to make sure that football was something they enjoyed enough to come back to the varsity team.

Unfortunately, in the first game of that last year, the new head coach and his staff usurped my position. I was left to the punt team. Few of the 44 players saw much playing time, and I was furious. After the game, we boarded the bus, and I announced that the next day the team would have a different coach because I hadn’t been able to keep my promise about everyone receiving playing time.

That was the end of my coaching journey. I enjoyed it and missed the contact with teams. However, I had a different view of what freshman football was all about and no longer had that excitement that comes when a team takes the field.

I’m grateful for the chance to coach. I learned that playing the game was not necessarily a requirement for coaching. After all, coaching is teaching, and I could do one with no problem. I figured that sending on players who had the basic skills down could certainly help the varsity team. I appreciate all those boys who allowed me to coach them, and I hope I didn’t make them dislike football.