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Monday, October 1, 2007
Guthrie’s Gem
Central Oklahoma, OK
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By: Andrew Gilman
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Photo(s) By: Wes Sharp
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Guthrie football coach Rafe Watkins remembers the wins, the losses and all the games in between. But that’s only natural when you love football like he does.
You always hope that you’ll get one. We had a ton of talent. The first year I was here, when we were 8-3 was the foundation for us here. The next year, the seniors put it on their shoulders. I didn’t think at the time that we would win it all. We started the season 2-2 but won 10 games in a row.
I’d love to be able to win it again. You feel fortunate when you do. That was my fifth year as head coach and that was the same year Bill Blankenship and Jim Dixon won one. To know they hadn’t won one, you knew you were lucky.
I can remember a lot of plays from that season. I live for football. I can remember all the scores from the games I played in high school. That’s the stuff that’s important to me.
Unfortunately, most coaches remember the losses more than the wins. You remember the big wins. But the losses? I can remember two that I will remember to the day I die. We had a 17-point lead on Noble here in 2004 and everything that could go wrong in the last 8 minutes went wrong. Their quarterback looked like Joe Montana. And last year, we fumbled eight times at Deer Creek. I remember everything about that one.
It’s great to have the big wins, but most coaches tell you that you that you don’t remember the great teams, but when an average team comes together and good high school players turn into great ones.
When you’ve played well and you win and you’ve executed the right way, that’s when you feel good.
I always wanted to be involved in coaching.
Steve Lohmann was the defensive coordinator at Northwestern (Oklahoma State) when I played there. He got everything out of us. He was a motivator. I learned more football and work ethic from him than anyone else.
I’m the kind of guy who looks forward to practice.
We have fun at practice. I’m still the scout team quarterback and I like to throw with them. I love to go out and have a good time. We’re strict, but we try to have as much fun as possible. There’s never a day that we don’t laugh. That’s what keeps you young.
Guthrie has been good to me. We are a group of 1,000 kids and we do everything here in all sports with about 100 male athletes.
We’re not going to get rich from coaching. You try to help kids. You love to win, but you want to make a difference in kids’ lives. You want to help them in some way. There’s always that kid that needs us more than the program needs him. We’re hired and fired over wins and losses but when they kids come back after they have graduated, and they come see you, that’s why we do this job.
Without a doubt, sports were important to me growing up. I played football, basketball, baseball and ran track at Prague. But most of our class did that. I was an only child. My dad was an inspiration to me and my mom did anything for me I needed. They never missed any games of mine from Lttle League on. As a redshirt freshman at Northwestern, my parents knew that I wasn’t playing, but they still went to every game we played that season.
I’ve had one kid kill himself and a few die in car crashes, but the situation with him (Kale Powell), was tougher. I felt like it was my own child. I can’t imagine what his parents went through. That whole year was kind of a blur from there. We had high expectations for that year. We won our last game and went 6-4 and didn’t make the playoffs, but that season football wasn’t as much fun.
As long as we’re competive that’s fine. Id love to win another two or three state titles, but if I never win another, at least I’ve got one. And there are hall of fame guys who don’t even have one.
The toughest team to prepare for is Carl Albert. Jim Holloway now at Duncan is the most prepared of any coach I’ve ever faced.
One coach that doesn’t get enough credit would be Lindy Wellborn at Harrah. He isn’t there any more. Scheme wise they were excellent.
One of the best coaching jobs I feel like I did was when went 1-9 at Guymon. I was the offensive coordinator. To say we were horrible is an understatement. That season, we didn’t even look at the scoreboard, we were just happy to get first downs. I truly believe that we worked hard and that our staff worked our tails off. We just weren’t very good.
Since I’ve been here at Guthrie, we’ve been blessed with good talent. You can coach well and that’s great, but the reason we’ve been successful is because we’ve had great players. You can’t take a mule to the Kentucky Derby and expect to win, no matter how hard you train him.
There’s not a better place to play than Jelsma Stadium. We love it there.
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