Grill: Coach Ryan Habich

Football for Fuquay-Varina Head Coach Ryan Habich is a vocation and an avocation. His Bengals team recently captured the Tri-8 Conference Championship for the fourth year in a row. Helping athletes become the best they can be, mentally, emotionally and physically, is more rewarding for Coach Habich than the team's winning record. Habich, 32, joined the Bengals in 2005 as (then) Coach Dave Riggs' defensive coordinator. He became head coach last February. A 1995 graduate of Satellite (FL) High School, he played football for Western Illinois University and Mars Hill College. He was an assistant coach in Florida high schools for six years before coming to Fuquay-Varina. VYPE: You are the Tri-8 Conference Champs for the fourth year in a row. To what do you attribute your success? HABICH: Coach Riggs (previous FVHS Head Coach) deserves a lot of the credit for laying the foundation of the program over the last four years. Having very good assistant coaches who care about the kids, but also demand the very best out of our players. The unselfishness and willingness of our players to be coached and put in the time in our off-season workout program has been one of the biggest reasons for our success over the last four years. We have also been very fortunate to have great administration that understands the importance that interscholastic athletics can have on the school. VYPE: What is the most difficult aspect of coaching? HABICH: Spending so much time away from your family. Coaching high school football is a year-round job where many people don't understand all the duties and time high school coaches put in to run a program. VYPE: What is the most rewarding aspect? HABICH: Being able to change behaviors of student athletes to make them the best student athlete they can be. Watching student athletes become better people and improve athletically is very rewarding. We tell our kids that playing an interscholastic sport is a privilege rather than a right in school, so it is really rewarding when kids come back after they played and thank you for changing their bad behaviors and making them a better person and teaching them more than just football. VYPE: What are your expectations of players on and off the field? HABICH: We expect our players to be leaders of the school. Doing the right thing even when it might not be the most popular thing to do. The foundation of our program is character development and academics, so we talk a lot about the importance of these two qualities and make sure our players are practicing and following these qualities and holding each other accountable. VYPE: How did you get into coaching in the first place? HABICH: I've always been around high school athletics, my dad was a high school principal and I always wanted to be a teacher and coach ever since I attended games with my dad when I was younger. VYPE: What is the best Fuquay-Varina football game that you have ever been a part of? HABICH: There have been many exciting games at FVHS over the last four years, but two games stand out for me: 2005 Beating Cary when they had Josh Adams. 2008 Beating Apex @ Apex to win the Tri-8 Conference Championship. VYPE: Where did you go to high school? HABICH: I went to Satellite High School in Satellite Beach, Florida. VYPE: Did you play high school football? Any other sports? HABICH: I played football, basketball and track in high school. And then played four years of college football. VYPE: What is the greatest lesson you have learned yourself, as a coach? HABICH: I think the greatest lesson I've learned as a coach was how to treat people and make decisions based on what is right and not on what is the most popular decision. Most of these lessons I learned from Coach Riggs while I coached under him for three years. Good leaders and coaches need to be honest with their employees/players and be as objective as possible towards different situations and in some cases people don't like the decisions, but they will appreciate your honesty even though they might not have agreed with the decision at the time.