For the past three years of high school, I have been coached day in and day out by numerous different Greenhill football coaches. Starting August 1 every summer, the football team has countless practices and meetings to prepare for the upcoming season.
Every day our coaches show up and push us to be the best person and player we can be. Although we hang out with them, we respect them as leaders of our team. Most of them have spent their lives learning the best ways to coach us.
All the players have the same end goal and that means winning as many games as possible. This is my first year winning a football game at Greenhill besides junior varsity. This is due to new coaching and an increase in attention to the football program.
During the build-up to Homecoming, I had the opportunity to coach girls in my grade for the annual turnabout football game. The other football player juniors and I held practices on the weekend and helped the junior girls prepare for the game against the seniors.
It’s a nice change being able to watch the girls do the drills and not us. Having Sunday practices is much better than after a long day of school. Football is something I have been around my whole life, whether it was playing it or watching it. For most of these girls it’s fairly new so we try to keep it simple.
We are out there to have fun because if we tried to make it as serious as our practice, it would be more like a punishment. The other coaches and I take drills from our practice and turn them into no-contact drills and make them a lot more fun. Everyone is out there to have a good time and that’s the coach’s main goal during turnabout.
Obviously, we want to win the turnabout game but once it’s done, we move on. For Greenhill, the team will get together and watch the film and fix their mistakes for the next week. We don’t get the opportunity to do that, so we tell the girls to go out there and just have fun.
Overall, coaching was a great experience to have fun with my friends while competing against the seniors. I learned that I enjoy playing a lot more and will stick to that.
