A Return to Tradition

In high school football I got by with heart and talent. We won the state title my senior year at Chandler, and the next year at East Central, I thought I could I play. I guess you could say it didn't take. I had to make myself go to practice. I knew, at that moment, I needed to do something else.

My dad worked for OG&E and we transferred every three or four years. My parents were always involved in my sports. He was the little league football and baseball coach. Mom never missed a game.

I've known I wanted to be a coach since my sophomore year in high school. I liked the way the coaches made me feel and probably at that time knew I wasn't going to make it as a player.

I was in the military after college. Four years. My dad asked if I was going to give up a career that would take care of me the rest of my life and put it all in the hands of kids who are 16 and 17 years old.

The military was a great career, but it wasn't for me. I don't know what I'd be doing if I wasn't coaching. It's crossed my mind a few times, but I can't come up with anything.

I worked for three great head coaches. They were great mentor coaches, so I knew what I was going to face when I became a head coach. It's a different role being a head coach. It's fun. I love it. There's some times that you miss the actual nuts and bolts coaching of the kids because you're too busy trying to see whole thing instead of the finer points.

When I went to Woodward there were two jobs that I would have left for. Ardmore and Moore. I love Moore football. The Woodward situation was one where I could have lived there forever. I knew what kind of program it could be and the support you could get out there. I didn't take it as a stepping stone to get another job, but this was a job that I knew I might want. When it came open it was a big decision. We were on the verge of making it a really good program.

We, as coaches, say it's the most important thing in our lives. But the kids have a lot of important things. We have to remember that football may not be the only thing for them.

I wish that we would have an opportunity to give kids time in the summer to be kids. I wish there was the month or some time where the kids can go vacation or hang out and go fish with grandpa.

There's a fine line in there about wearing your kids out and giving them an opportunity to succeed and how you run your summer program.

Profanity doesn't work. Positive reinforcement and coaching them hard is what we do. I preach that to our kids. It helps us to project character building and things that are more important than winning ball games

As far as coaching, we have to turn it into teaching. It doesn't matter what we know, it's what we can get across and get the kids to remember and believe in.

The double overtime quarterfinal win over Owasso in 2001 was the best game I've been part of.

I hate to lose. But the No. 1 priority is to get these kids to be productive citizens and productive adults. Winning is a way to be successful.

We're a football family. I have two kids. A junior daughter who has been the football manager. Since sixth grade she's been at every practice. My son is in 5th grade. He's always around the lockerroom and practices.

We'll go in each year, whether we've won three titles in a row or have gone 3-7 with three goals. The first is to win the opener. The second is to win more than we lose and the third is to go to the playoffs. We want to get a title, but you can't get there if you don't make the playoffs.

My staff is guys who know Moore Lion tradition the way I know it. It makes my job easy. I'm still learning from my guys that were here before.

With coach Noles, the biggest thing was his organization and his expectations of his kids and coaches. He expected you to do right and good. We're very similar in the way we organize things and make sure that time management is perfect.

The Moore War is such a big game. It's one of the top rival games. It's the playoffs in game one. Intensity changes each Friday night, but game one is always the same no matter who's favored or who's on top. No matter what, 15-20,000 people will show up.

The little things make a difference. We won't always have the best guys, but we'll have guys who are blue collar and work hard and understand what it takes to win.