Land addresses Carpet City Rotary

Published 1:06 am Thursday, September 8, 2011

Dalton High football coach Matt Land spoke to Carpet City Rotary at a recent meeting, with his message that in order to build a team, the coach has to build a foundation beginning with the whole student.

Land discussed playing many roles as the school’s head football coach, not the least of which is being a role model for the players. He said that he “may have four children at home, but he actually has 100,” because he doesn’t separate his life from his team. He added that, “if someone has a problem at home, in school, or with the law,” they call him, so that makes his coaching life 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Last season was Land’s 18th season as a coach, but his first as a head coach.

“The surprising difference between being an assistant and head coach is the sheer volume of responsibilities that go with being a head coach” Land said.

He said that he had 3296 minutes and 691 text messages on his cell phone last month.

“Josh Robinson at Northwest, David Crane at Southeast, Preston Poag at Christian Heritage, Jared Hamlin at Coahulla Creek all should be encouraged for their efforts, because you can just imagine what envelopes their life in a day,” he said. “We have great men who are leading these programs, and I hope that people put me in that category. If they don’t, that’s fine, but I can speak to these men and they are phenomenal. They are good Christian men, and our community really should be excited about the leadership that is at our schools, because these guys are good men.”

Land discussed what goes into being a high school football coach.

“Seventy percent of my players don’t come from ‘traditional families,’” he said. “I’m asked to be the daddy, the counselor, the teacher, the tutor, the pastor and the best friend … that’s what a high school coach is asked to be. What we are trying to do is develop these athletes into different parts.

“One is the athletic man, we feel like that’s part of being a man. There are certain athleticisms and certain challenges that we need in life.  Skills to deal with those challenges, learning to pick yourself back up after you’ve been knocked down is one of those.

“Second is the educational man, the mental man. How smart is he? How is he going to support a family? How is he going to be as an employee or an employer?

“Third is the spiritual man, because we feel that we have to address the spiritual man if we are going to address these other issues, and they will give them a much greater chance of penetration and success if we begin taking care of those spiritual issues that these kids have.”

 Land gave the team definition of spiritual, saying “I don’t want to make you think that’s religion-based, we think the spiritual man is more than just their faith; we believe the spirit is actually in these kids character and envelopes their desires and emotions and how they portray those in the world and on the field.

“And as a high school football coach, I get the opportunity to do something that most parents never do … I get to see these kids at the highest that they are in their life and the lowest that they are in their life,” which he called a great privilege. “There is a great obligation that I have to make sure that my character and the character of our coaches is consistent, whether they are in the valley or they are on top of the mountain.”

Land let it be known that the students lead the faith-based program and they choose to pray after every practice.

“Our kids talk about character and faith,” he said.

The coaches at Dalton High challenge the young men on the team to be drug- and alcohol-free, and are trying to help the players understand the value of giving back.

Land told of players supporting younger children and peers.

“We do a program called peer tutoring, and send these guys out to be reading buddies to the younger kids,” he said. “Educational man is something that I get excited about because of the number of kids that I have excelling right now.”

On the varsity, there are 52 out of 62 players with a 3.0 GPA. Fourteen of those have a 4.0 GPA or higher, and eight have a 3.5 or higher, with seven at 3.0 or higher. That’s 48 percent of the team with a 3.0 GPA or higher. The goal is to send five kids to college per year.

When speaking about the season, Land discussed how the young team was blooming.

“I’m excited about our young football team,” he said. “I had to replace nine players on defense and seven starters on offense. That’s 16 out of 20 players, and we have a lot of young talent out there. This upcoming class of players loves to play and they want to be there. They have the characteristics of being a very good football team because of a lot of the intangibles.”

“We have two new receivers that you’re probably unfamiliar with, because everyone last year said, ‘Coach you’re not a throwing team.’ Well we were a throwing team, we just weren’t a catching team. We’ve got guys that could throw the ball; we just didn’t have any hands that could catch it.”

Over the offseason, the team acquired some hands.

“On defense we’ve had a lot of changes,” he said. “We lost our entire defensive line, almost 1,000 pounds. When you lose almost 1,000 pounds of anything it’s rough. We’ve had to move some things around. We now have a former quarterback that is now starting at defensive tackle and a linebacker that is starting at defensive end.

“Special teams required us to replace a four-year starting punter, but we have a guy that stepped in Friday night and averaged 40.8 yards.  We added two new coaches, hiring Bill Napier because he is a great influence and a good man who knows about the offensive side of the ball.  Also we added Steve Sparks who was a former head coach and also knows offense.

“I’ve tried to surround myself with leaders who are smarter than me in my weaker areas,” Land said.

All in all, Land looks to have a good season if the team can keep illness and suspensions at bay.