Football players of all ages view their coaches as leaders, teachers, father-figures, motivators and tacticians. Three highly decorated members of the USA Football Junior National Team coaching staff feel the same way about their former high school and college head coaches.
Team USA's defensive coordinator Steve Specht, linebackers coach Allen Wilson and offensive line coach Ed Croson all spoke highly of their former football coaches crediting them with being the most influential people in their lives.
Specht's mentor, former Cincinnati St. Xavier High School football head coach Steve Rasso, retired from coaching in 2003. Wilson met Midland (Texas) Lee High School head football coach Johnny Williams during the former's playing days there. Croson's offensive line coach at Fullerton (Calif.) Junior College, Glenn Thomas, made a lasting impression in just one year: 1976.
Over 400 combined wins and numerous championships later, all three Junior National Team coaches know they couldn't have done it alone. Their former coaches were there to help them in the past, and they're still there to help them today.
"If you're one of [Rasso's] guys, he's always going to take care of you," said Specht, Rasso's successor as head football coach at St. Xavier, where he has won two state championships and Ohio Division I Coach of the Year honors. "Even today, I call Steve to discuss my coaching perspectives."
Rasso, inducted into the Ohio High School Football Hall of Fame in 2005, retired after a 26-year coaching career, which included three trips to the Ohio state finals. However, it was his demeanor on and off the field that endeared him to Specht, who took to the field as a defensive back for St. Xavier in 1982.
"He knows football - that's a given," Specht said. "But he was the most honest individual I've ever met. He never accepted anything less than your best, and he treated everyone the same."
When Wilson was a Midland Lee Rebel in 1968, Coach Williams taught the youngster some of these same lessons. The respected coach was also able to inspire Wilson in his career choice later in life, and the two still remain in contact.
"He's a very consistent, very straightforward coach, and he wanted you to be disciplined," said Wilson, head coach at Dallas Carter High School. "You felt you wanted to grow up to be like him. He's one of the reasons I coach."
Croson, head coach at Lake Balboa Birmingham (Calif.) High School, played as an offensive lineman under then-quarterbacks and receivers coach Jim Fassel at the University of Utah and former 31-year Fullerton head coach Hal Sherbeck. However, the coach who made the biggest impact on his life was Glenn Thomas, the Fullerton offensive line coach. Thomas, Croson said, used tactics foreign to coaches in 1976.
"He was just so different than the norm in those days," Croson said. "In those days, it was either ‘my way or the high way' for the coaches. The first thing I noticed about [Thomas] was that he was upbeat, positive and instructive."
Croson still uses the lessons he learned from Thomas in coaching his players at Birmingham, winners of five league championships since 2000.
"If you treat people with respect, they'll run through the wall for you," Croson said. "That little bit of spirit from Fullerton College - we've harnessed that and used that."
Specht recalls receiving the same treatment from Rasso.
"You never wanted to let him down, and you didn't want him to yell at you," Specht said. "As you grew up through the program, you earned the right to lead the team. He always treated you with respect as an individual."
Football, as Wilson puts it, is not all about Xs and Os, and sometimes it takes a special coach to teach the real lessons that can come from playing America's favorite sport.
"You learned a lot more than blocking and tackling," Wilson said. "You learned how to carry yourself as a young man."