The book ‘Blood, Sweat and Tears for 46 Years’ by Jim Scible has many stories from 46 years of coaching football, including hots beds of high school football like the states of Florida, Texas and Alabama.
Here is an article from the Dothan Eagle in Dothan, Alabama where he spent a couple years of his coaching career.
I really liked Jim’s stories about going to Texas and trying to find a way ‘in’ since he is not from Texas. Picking a football coach in Texas is a big deal, and so much so that he explains how the High School Principal is usually not part of the process as the head coach is picked by the school board. If you are not from Texas you either have to make your way up the chain or find a very good reference to get in front of the school board!
I love great quotes and that might be one of the best pieces of this book. Every few pages in bold he has a ‘Coaching Point’ with a quote that relates to the current story.
Here are a couple….
Coaching Point: Sometimes you have to lose control to gain momentum.
I like this quote as it reminds me of trying to help players find that next gear. Also, that you have to practice at game speed or practice will not help you at at.
Coaching Point: It’s no less true for being trite: “Necessity is the mother of invention” — and innovation.
What I love about football is in that quote. It will never stop evolving. There are eleven players on each side of the ball so there will always be an infinite numbers of ways an offensive philosophy or an individual play can develop.
Jim was very honest in this book in that you need to stick with the philosophy that has brought you success in the past. He cut his teeth running the wishbone offense and had the great fortune of meeting with the originator of the wishbone offense Emory Bellard, when Emory was the offensive coordinator at Texas. Jim describes sometimes drifting away from that wishbone, run-first, play-action mentality that he grew to know and understand so well and how that drifting away cost him some success at times. He has plenty of success though too including a 1998 Florida 5A championship with the Osceola Kowboys.
As an option guy myself, it is fun to read of stories about the birth of wishbone football. It would be so cool to go back and watch some of those first practices under Emory Bellard as that offense took shape and subsequently transformed football for decades.
Every coach will relate to the ups and downs of coaching (and living!) that Jim has shared in this book. Thank you for sharing Coach Scible.
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