Mini Carb Night at the Mineo House

Annemarie Mineo-Lococo sent me an e-mail that she had some of the players over for pasta night at her home last week. She passed a message onto me telling me the players were well behaved gentlemen and they were fun to be around. The players left to right are: Peter Mineo, Peter Vilsaint, Dominick Vergili, Kyle Connor and Charles Lee.

Credit goes to you parents and the way you all raise your sons. I am blessed to be working with such fine young men and parents.

Bedroom Slippers

I'm not slave to fashion trends. My idea of dressing nicely is wearing a collared polo shirt with my board shorts. But I do know what is in bad taste.

I tell my players it is unacceptable to wear their shorts down by their knees. Especially if it's Patrick Henry football shorts. I tell our players they set an impression to the student body, teachers, administrators and to the public and they represent me and the football program. So wear your clothes the way it was meant to be worn.

Yesterday during weight training, two of our players showed up in bedroom slippers. You know, black footie-foot bedroom slippers that you wear after you crawl out of bed on a cold winter morning.

I asked both players if they wore them to school. They said yes. I was thrown for a loop. They looked like extras for the next episode of the 'Jerry Springer Show'.

The impression these players made to me was they were too lazy to put a pair of shoes on. It was too hard to slide on a pair of shoes and it was way too hard to tie the shoe laces in a knot. For goodness sakes, who wears bedroom slippers out in public let alone school?

So to make the decision making process easier for my players, I said the next person who wears bedroom slippers to school will be suspended for the team for the week. Any second offense will result in the removal from the team.

Bedroom slippers! For the love of....

An Invitation to Military Personnel

I grew up in a Navy family. My father was a career Navy man and we moved from place to place every three years. My junior and senior years were at Patrick Henry while my father was stationed on the USS Enterprise based out of Alameda, CA.

Due to deployments and the fact my father was stationed out of town, he was only able to make one my football games. I never gave it a thought until recently, but I wish I could have done more for my father when he was here for that one game.

One of our players mentioned his father was coming back from a recent deployment in Afghanistan.

With that being said, I would like to extend an invitation to all my parents that currently serve in the military to watch the freshmen football games from the sideline as my guest. It is just a small token of appreciation to those who make sacrifices while ensuring the freedom of which we live under.

Lean On Me

One of my all time favorite songs is 'Lean on Me' by Bill Withers. From time to time, I find myself singing the song as I walk down to the football stadium before practice.

The song is a message of hope and humility. It speaks of helping one another during times of dispair and reaching out to those that feel they can't go on anymore.

I was watching ESPN this morning and I saw a story on the USC Football team. In the story, a USC freshman sang the song as a rite of passage into joining the team. As a prank, Head Coach Pete Carroll had Bill Withers meet the team while posing as an NCAA official.

When Withers finally let the cat out of the bag and identified himself, all the players knew who he was and they sang the song. It brought unity to the team and all the players.

I have attached the link from Youtube for you to view.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T2QRpmjRmQ&feature=player_embedded

PHHS 16 Pt. Loma 7

What an outstanding job turned in by the team as we overcame a 7-0 deficit and come from behind to beat Pt. Loma 16 - 7. That was a hard fought game and the players stepped up and played to the top of their potential earning a hard fought victory over a very good Pt. Loma. Credit goes to the assistant coaches and players for all the preparation and adjustments made at halftime.

Defense was outstanding. Two turnovers with a fumble recovery and an interception (1 short of game goals), a shutout (game goal met) and six 3 & outs (game goal surpassed by 3). Pt. Loma was held to negative yards in the second half with no first downs. Pt. Loma went for it on 4th down 3 times and came away with nothing. One of those stops was made at the goal line. Defense carried us and kept us in the game. Our goal line formation was tough and we dominated the LOS.

Offense had a slow start to the game. During the first half, I lost my composure and threw my hat...(it's my fishing hat, so I need to take care of it!) That is completely unacceptable and I apologize to you all and I apologized to the team. I have to remember, these players are 14/15 years old and most of them never competed in this type of sport before.

I apologized to the team to let them know I am human and I make mistakes too. Now let's not dwell on it. Let's fix it and move forward. When I did that, I could see it in their eyes they were willing to follow us through a wall. It built our credibility as a coaching staff and they bought in to everything we were saying. Good coaching staffs make adjustments at the half. Good coaching staffs pass those changes onto the players and good teams carry out those adjustments.

Well, needless to say, we came out like gangbusters in the second half. We dominated every aspect of the game and it is a tribute the the spirit of the players and their will to compete.

Offensive Line adjustments were right on the money and we dominated the LOS (Line of Scrimmage). Coach Bushardt and Coach Gallion did great job of getting our O-line ready for the second half. When it was crunch time, we ran the ball over our big guys and they got the job done.

Special teams did a good job. We had a couple of guys miss being called out to the game for their assignment, but overall, it was a good day on special teams. We recovered an onside kick and it was a good heads up play and we converted a 27 yard field goal.

The crowd was big and loud. I know it meant alot to the players and the coaching staff to see friends and family at the game. It was sweet to do our 'Victory' jumping jacks in front of our fans and everybody had fun with that.

Nick Lococo has already posted photos from the game on his web site. (His site was posted on an earlier Blog) Please take the time to take a look at it.

Next week is a bye week. Practice next week will be Monday and Wednesday. Tuesday is picture day. Thursday we will have study hall only because the coaching staff will be all over the County scouting our upcoming opponents. Friday is weight training and no practice.

On a final note... I saw some of you parents wearing Hawaiian shirts for the game! As we would say back home in Hawaii, "Mahalo for da aloha!" (Thanks for the love)

False Masculinity

Today is 9/11 and I pause to think of all those who lost their lives on that day 8 years ago. It has changed our daily lives and we must never forget the people that lost lives and the ultimate sacrifices that people made on that day.

Today I will meet with the team and speak about what is important in life... Loving one another. We live in a society where personal accomplishments take the spotlight. Masculinity is based on how much money you make, how many girlfriends you have or how many touchdowns you scored. These are examples of the quick gratification lifestyle we live in these days. But that is not the true meaning of masculinity.

As I think back on that day 8 years ago, I think about those folks on United Flight 93. They knew they were doomed and they were going to die. They knew they had to do something and they made an attempt to take over the plane. They all know the chances were slim to overtake the highjackers and there was a good chance they were going to die. As they tried to overtake the plane, it crashed in rural Pennsylvania and all aboard died.

The point I want to bring up to our players is the phone calls people on Flight 93 made to their families before they tried to overtake the highjackers. They did not call home or their loved ones to boast about how much money they made, what kind of car they drove or how many homeruns they hit. They called their families to let them know they loved them.

To me, that is so important for the development of our young men. Nobody ever took the time to explain that to me and as I look back on my development as a young man, I wish somebody would have. Loving one another and trusting one another is important in our everyday lives.

Web Site for Photos

Annemarie Lococo-Mineo sent me an e-mail informing me her brother, Nick Lococo, is a professional photographer. He will be taking photos of our players and has set up a web site for all view the photos.

http://web.mac.com/nicklococophoto/PHHS/Home.html