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As football season kicks into high gear this month, few feel the tension more than coaches of the area’s 5A and 6A high schools. From parental influence to rules compliance to winning expectations, local coaches discuss just how hot those Friday night lights can become.
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This fall, when the local stadiums are packed, the crowds are roaring and the Friday night lights shine at their brightest, you can bet the coaches of the Tulsa area’s biggest high school football programs will have only one thing on their minds — winning.
“There’s not a high school coach that doesn’t feel that pressure,” says Booker T. Washington High School’s new head coach, Darrell Hall. “The kids expect to win. The coaches expect to win. The administrators expect to win. Everybody wants to win.”
Hall knows about winning. He was hired from Oklahoma City’s Star Spencer High School, where he won the state 4A championship last year. He replaces Antwain Jimmerson, who was suspended last year for player eligibility violations and resigned as Washington’s head coach in January.
From the first snap, everything is on the line for the coaches: win-loss records, reputations, state championships and maybe even their jobs. Football at the top 5A and 6A schools in metro Tulsa is more than just a fun extracurricular activity for young men. It’s a serious endeavor. Going more than a few years without a state championship simply doesn’t cut it in most of these football-crazed communities.
As a result, high school football dynasties have emerged, with the same powerhouse teams competing for trophies and championships year after year. And while consistent success at programs such as Jenks, Union and to a lesser extent Booker T. Washington has been sweet for schools and fans alike, it has also fed an insatiable appetite for more. For these schools, and perhaps more importantly for the communities they represent, achieving glory on the gridiron has become the expectation every season.
The job of creating, fulfilling and managing these expectations falls largely on the head coach — the man in charge of overseeing dozens of players as well as a cadre of assistants whose job it is to turn their teams into winning machines.
But just how much pressure are these coaches under? Is compliance with rules governing eligibility and, ultimately, fairness too cumbersome and difficult? Are the days of schools tolerating a head football coach with a 7-3 record over?
With another season set to begin and last year’s suspensions of coaches at Jenks and Booker T. Washington for rules infractions still fresh in the minds of many, questions linger over just who today’s coaches are and how far they will go to build and maintain the success of their programs.
Today’s parents add to pressure
To understand more fully what it takes to coach a successful program at a large high school, it is helpful to look at what has changed.
Coaching high school football isn’t the same as it was a few decades ago, says Milt Bassett, executive director of the Oklahoma Coaches Association (OCA), an organization that sponsors coaches’ clinics and staff development, holds a festival for all high school sports and serves as host for the Oklahoma Coaches Hall of Fame.
Bassett has coached football since 1968, including time at the high schools in Enid, Shawnee, Woodward, Yukon and Purcell, Okla., as well as Henrietta, Texas. In 1994, his Woodward team won the 5A state championship. He also served on the University of Oklahoma coaching staff in 1984 and 1985.
“It’s harder now than when I started in ’68,” Bassett says. “I’m sympathetic to the coaches coming up now.”
Foremost among the changes has been the involvement and influence (and some might say, the intrusion) of parents into the game, adding a new layer to a job that requires coaches to motivate and teach players, manage assistants and keep administrators happy.
“Today’s coaches have to face more parent input on everything, and administrators allow this,” Bassett says. “Now they have to be parent managers and deal with those pressures.
“In the old days, if a (player) got into trouble at school, he got in trouble at home, but it’s not that way. Today, coaches find they have to appease everyone and it’s expected that they do so.”
Bill Blankenship, former Union High School head football coach, agrees that parental pressure has mounted on coaches over the years.
“Parents are the No. 1 issue you face today,” he says. “The culture has become so that it encourages active and engaged parents. They ask questions, they try to negotiate with you, they want to know why their kid is not playing.”
Blankenship submitted his resignation from Union in December 2005. Following a brief stint with Coaches Outreach Ministry, he joined head coach Todd Graham’s staff at The University of Tulsa in January 2007 as an assistant coach.
However, he coached big-time high school football for 23 years, including 14 at Union, where his teams won 6A state titles in 2002, 2004 and 2005. (Union High School declined to participate in this article.)
At a large, successful program like Union’s, parent criticism and wrath are magnified, especially in the wake of defeats.
“There were always criticisms if you got (to the championship) and didn’t win it,” Blankenship says. “We had three or four times when we didn’t win it. I had to get home to check my answering machine before my wife heard what was on it.”
While Blankenship left with many great memories of his time as a high school coach, he hasn’t taken an angry call from a parent in four years.
“I don’t miss that part one bit,” he says with a chuckle.
