Establishing the System

HSSTM: Last fall was a banner season for the Goddard football program. After going 0-9 in your first season at Goddard in 2004, you led the Lions to Class 6A sub-state in 2007. What were some of the landmarks in the program's progression to last season's heights?

Roger Robben: The first year, we hit rock bottom by going 0-9, and there were a lot of things that were changing. Discipline, overall attitude of what we were doing and where we were going - that was a part of it. The other part of it that people don't think about is that we were pretty much competing at a 4A and 5A level the year before we went 0-9. Don Davis' last year (as head coach at Goddard in 2003), we were playing mainly 4A schools, because we were in the Chisholm Trail League. The 0-9 season is when we started the Ark Valley-Chisholm Trail Division II. We went from playing a 4A-5A schedule to really playing predominantly a 5A-6A schedule.

Our second year in Division II in 2005, we went to playoffs. Early on that year, we struggled. We went up to Salina South and played a really close game. That was the year last fall's senior class were sophomores, and they started as sophomores. So we were young. We developed through the year, went 5-5 and lost in the playoffs to Salina Central who went on to win the state championship. Those kids had the attitude of winners.

The next year (2006) we started playing in 6A. That was a whole new ballgame. We went 5-1 going into our district games against Hutch, Garden and Dodge. It was a brutal district. There were three teams - Hutch, Garden and Dodge who were good enough for the playoffs.

It took a change of mentality - you're going to have to work harder, be more physical, play harder and tougher. And then this last year - as far as having players go both ways - we had a lot of guys step up - guys like Logan Watkins, Ryan Smith and Seth Beard.

Those guys believed in each other. That was a great class last year. But in terms of building it, it just takes time. It's the system, belief in the system and establishing the system.

HSSTM: Logan Watkins never left the field last fall - leading the team at quarterback, defensive back and return man on special teams. He and a special senior class which gave Goddard its first playoff win since 1988 have moved on. Who will step up this fall to replace them?

Roger Robben: Three years ago in practice we did a period called GMTXE - Goddard Mental Toughness Extra Effort - that was primarily the first offense against the first defense for 10 to 15 minutes in practice everyday - live scrimmage. Back in '05 we started that, a year after going 0-9. That was partly what contributed to some of our injuries in the '06 season when our depth went down. You ask any coach about contact and level of hitting in practice - and I talked a lot about this with one of my mentors while at Buhler, Chuck Porter: You condition your guys in practice through having a tough practice but not necessarily through hitting.

We stopped the GMTXE last year. The physical level of our practices was not the same as the previous two years. We didn't ask for that high intensity in practice last year. The intensity level of practice was high enough with the guys we had.

Tying that in to what we have now - with going to the team camp at Fort Hays and doing speed, strength and conditioning in the off-season - the expectations are high within our group. Last year, that level was focused within our senior group. Now, it's even more concentrated in both our junior and senior classes.

HSSTM: Give us some background on Roger Robben the coach. Since playing at Bishop Carroll and KU and at your many coaching stops before arriving at Goddard, who have been some of your coaching mentors?

Roger Robben: Alan Schuckman's whole demeanor, organization, leadership, the way you do things the right way - all those things I learned from him. The balance of coaching and life - a lot of that I learned from Alan. You've got to have depth and guys prepared to play. That program (Bishop Carroll) speaks for itself.

I took the head job at Buhler in 2000 (after coaching one season at Remington). Chuck Porter was the coach there before me. The irony of it is that he's the guy who recruited me to Wichita State the year they dropped the program. He had left East to become an assistant at Wichita State.

Chuck went to Buhler and was there for 13 years, went to state in '90 and lost to Pittsburg. He stayed on at Buhler as P.E. teacher, history teacher and golf coach, and he was a great mentor. Chuck would bring his staff into the school over the summer, and they would spend weeks going over football, drills, everything. It was like a clinic.

The big thing with Chuck was his approach. You want your kids to play hard, to do things the right way, but you've got to be that person in control. He wasn't a cusser, wasn't belligerent. That's the great thing about him and Alan. They're not real fiery. They're both level-headed. Yet when it came to doing things the right way, that expectation was there.

Don Davis and I talked a lot about the overall management of working with the entire community. At Northwest, he built the team with the youth program. That's something we've really worked on here with the junior football program. At Northwest, they had the Bears program, which fed right into Northwest.

Randy (Dreiling) was an influence on me, too, though. When I was at Buhler, Randy and I talked a lot. There's no doubt - who's not going to learn something about football from Randy Dreiling?

HSSTM: Is Goddard football here to stay as a competitor on the state level?

Roger Robben: We're not going to drop off. Our kids have too much pride and talent. The attitude is there. I look at Hutch, and they have talent, but I don't think last year they were as talented as in the past.

Dinwiddie came on late in the year - he was an eye-opener - and having Josh Smith as a backup behind Cotton was incredible. But those guys are system players, and that's what I look at our kids being more of now. It's more of a mentality. Our guys are system players. Another way of putting that is blue collar.