Sun-Times spotlight
FOOTBALL COORDINATOR | CHICAGO PUBLIC LEAGUE
What is your background? I'm a 1983 graduate of Robeson. I played on the 1982 state runner-up. I graduated from Colorado in 1988 and played with the Bears (1988-90) and Cowboys (1991-92) in the NFL. I joined the Chicago Board of Education in 1999 as assistant coordinator in football. Now I'm the head coordinator.
What is your job description? To schedule all Chicago Public School football programs, to assign officials and run the day-to-day operations of the football program.
What is your biggest challenge? Winning. I want to make all coaches understand that winning the state championship is what we are out to do. That is our main goal. We've never won a state title in football. It's about time the CPS got one.
What is your mission? To help train coaches to be better, to put productive programs on the field, to organize clinics in the offseason, to organize football camps in the summer, to talk about how to win football games.
What problems do you face? Back when I played, we didn't have enough coaches like other [suburban and private] schools did. It is almost the same way now. We still don't have enough coaches. But we're getting more players coming out. We used to get only 25; now we have 35-40. There is more interest being generated in football. More kids want to play the game. I don't think kids are afraid of playing football as they once were.
How do you propose to solve those problems? We must train coaches to be good coaches. We're in the process of doing that so they can teach fundamentals and techniques and X's and O's to their kids. We're doing more clinics in the offseason. A big criticism in the past was our coaches didn't attend clinics. Now they do. We have good coaches, but we don't have enough of them.
What are your goals? Our biggest goal is to compete with the best teams and close the gap between our teams and private and suburban schools. We have done a good job but not a total job. There are only 8-10 programs in the city right now that can really compete against the best private and suburban programs.
What changes need to be made? We just have to get better. We still must change the attitude that basketball is the only sport that city kids like to play. Sure, basketball is big. Football, track and field, soccer and baseball suffered from so many kids playing basketball. But there are more Division I scholarships available in other sports, and I hope they will realize they can play a sport other than basketball.
Is Morgan Park the best CPS team you have seen since Robeson in 1982? No. Their 2004 team was better. It had more offense, and the defense was better. They went to the state semifinals. They were bigger and fast, too. But this year's Morgan Park team is good enough to win the state title.
