A Winning Tradition

HSSTM: Who have been some important mentors for you as a coach? O'Hair: I coached under two coaches here in the Eighties - Dan Lawrence and Matt McKey. Dan was a great X's and O's guy. Matt McKey came in, and I coached with him for the last seven years that I was here (as an assistant). I learned a lot from him as far as motivating kids, team unity, developing character - those were his strong suits.... When I was in western Kansas (coaching at SW Heights), Gary Cornelison was having unbelievable success at Liberal.... The way I run practice, even our offense, a lot of the things we're doing today I got from him.... My dad (Bill O'Hair) was a high school football coach. In grade school, I was at almost every practice, sitting in the coaches' office listening to him talk with his assistants. He started at Truesdale...coaching 6-man football, then went to Englewood...and he ended up at Elkhart from 1961-1967 and had some undefeated teams before there were the state playoffs. What really got me interested was watching him and being around that. HSSTM: What coaching and training methods of yours have put a distinctive mark on the Andale program? O'Hair: Something I and all of my coaching staff have devoted itself to, watching Randy Dreiling out at Hutch and Gary Cornelison out at Liberal, watching my dad growing up, is you got to out-work people. You got to get the kids to understand that their success is going to be determined by how hard they work, and the coaching staff has to start that. HSSTM: How do you get kids to buy into the program and reach their potential while still allowing them to have fun with the game? O'Hair: Any coach would tell you that kids want discipline, they want to be involved in something that is structured, and the fact that we do push them hard and demand a lot out of them, even the kids that don't get to start, they get something out of this program. They're not all great football players. We got to remember that we're in the business of building young men, not just good football players. HSSTM: What was the impact of last season's state championship on Andale High and the community? O'Hair: It was a phenomenal experience for everybody. So many people feel like they are apart of this team. Either they played here, or they have a relative that is playing on the team. A small community always takes ownership of its team. They'd had so many close calls where it just didn't happen, everyone was so elated. HSSTM: What comes to mind when you think about tradition and Andale football? O'Hair: I don't know if this is something that is genetic or it's because of tradition, but these are aggressive and hard-working kids. We try to stress (hard work), but it seems to just come natural to these kids. I don't know whether it is the way they're raised or because of their genetics, but it's the ideal place to coach football because that's what you're looking for.