Hurry-up Offense

This article was written by Bill Kahn and featured both Coach Galvas, and former Hamady coach, Nathaniel Williams as they begin their programs as Head Coach of their respective schools. This was published in the Flint Journal on August 12th, 2008.


FLINT, Michigan — The season opener was 17 days away for most of the high school football teams that practiced for the first time Monday.

For Carman-Ainsworth and Hamady, that may not seem like nearly enough time to be prepared.
Both schools took the field Monday under new head coaches who were hired within the last 11 weeks.

A chain of events that impacted both programs was set off when Jason VanDerMaas resigned in early May after one year in charge at Carman-Ainsworth.

Williams, who was coaching at Hamady, was hired to replace VanDerMaas in late May. That created an opening at Hamady, which filled it in early July with Clint Galvas, the school's junior varsity coach.

There's been a crash course in learning new systems at both schools ever since.
Williams is ditching the spread offense Carman-Ainsworth players had to learn for the first time last year in favor of a more conventional power-running attack. Hamady is running the veer option, which Galvas was introduced to in his first days as a youth football player in Montrose.

"We're all on the same time schedule," Williams said. "With them learning a new system, I'm just going to be patient and teach the game. It's all still about football. It's about tackling and blocking. If we can do those things, we should be fine."

Galvas is a 25-year-old first-time varsity head coach who was on Montrose's 1998 state championship team, but he brings some old-school methods to Hamady. He has a simple, yet time-honored, way of penalizing players for missed pitchouts in the new option attack.

"Every time that ball hits the ground, we're doing some push-ups," senior running back Stanley Page said. "We didn't do too bad today. We probably had 40 (push-ups) today; that's four drops. In the summer, I think we peaked at 120 at one practice. Then he had us doing up-downs."

If there's a common theme at Carman-Ainsworth and Hamady, it's that neither coach will tolerate anyone using their late hiring as an excuse to fail this season.

"Some people would say we've had a lot of different challenges with a new coach two years in a row," said Carman-Ainsworth senior Isaac Smith, a kicker and free safety. "We've dealt with it fairly well. The coaches have pushed that it doesn't matter what you've got, you've got to make the best of it."

For Carman-Ainsworth junior lineman Tremondae Branch, this will be his third head coach in three seasons on the varsity. Branch was on a team that went 7-4 under Jerry Parker and made the second round of the playoffs in 2006, then on a squad that was 2-7 under VanDerMaas last season.

"It's a tough adjustment changing coaches every year, but this year he came in with a different attitude," Branch said. "It's just a new day over here. We've got everybody on the same page, becoming one team. We're trying to see what the future holds for us."
Fellow lineman Aaron Brandt said Williams set a new tone immediately when he first met with his players.

"The expectations are higher," Brandt said. "He came and put his foot down and made us not goof off. We came together. There's more team unity. He just reminds us every day that without team unity, we won't be a team. I believe we're growing a lot more."

Both teams laid a good foundation during the offseason so they were ready to hit the ground running Monday.

Galvas, who teaches at Hamady, maintained the weightlifting and speed program during the search process for a new coach. VanDerMaas already had an offseason program in place when he left, allowing the Cavaliers to participate in a team camp and a seven-on-seven league.

"As soon as he left, I tried to step right in and keep things rolling," Galvas said. "One thing I told them is we're not going to use the coaching staff, the later start and implementing some new things as an excuse. I have high expectations for these guys. With the high expectations, I hold them to a high standard."