For Pete’s sake let the coach, coach

There is no such thing as instant success when you are talking football. Football takes time. Like a plant you sow the seeds of a new program and get the kids to believe and they will come. New Trojans coach Adam Gent is doing just that. Will he win all the time his first year? No, he won't and that's Ok. At least for me. But others are not so willing to believe.

So I found it interesting that while in the stands that people already wanted him fired. One guy went off and started to rant about the play calling.

"No good coach would ever call plays like that and all the football coaches should be fired," he said.

I know for a fact it can get brutal for these coaches, so much so their wives don't even want to sit in the stands. That is sad.

I am sorry pal, it just doesn't work that way. Most college coaches who are getting paid to do what they are doing like Jim Harbough at least get a season or two. After all, the kids that Harbough coaches now are not even his recruiting class. The same with Gent. But he does it for the love of the game, not for the money.

How do I know that? I talk to him every week. Whether we win or lose, the coach is enthusiastic about his cause. I have never really had a negative conversation with him and his team just lost 40-7. Is he delusional? Absolutely not, he is teaching the boys other things besides winning. He is teaching the boys how to work hard and how to improve skills. These are lessons the kids may not get in school. His school is of the hard knock kind.

From the coach, the players learn to manage their time and work hard.

We need to respect the high school coaches a bit more. They sacrifice a lot of time and energy and get paid nothing for their time. Oh they get paid a stipend, but this does not even cover a part of the hours they spend on the field.

Really, everyone needs to back off. Let Gent do his thing. We can't expect him to win all his games his first year and I honestly found a silver lining in the 40-7 loss. Senior Quarterback TJ Milk looked unstoppable in his first second half drive, where he drove his team 70 yards for the only Trojans score. Milk and the Trojans need more of those drives. And they will come, if they just relax a bit and try not to force things that aren't there. I also saw signs of life in the running game. Tommy Gascoigne is looking for daylight and is improving. He will be a threat and will have a great day against Western.

We as a community are so lucky to have such a good coach land on our doorstep after Joe Clayton. Clayton is cut from the same block as Gent and both coaches care so deeply about their athletes. We are lucky to have them both still in our community.

What the parents need to do is to pressure kids that are sitting sports out because they are too lazy to work out and get good grades. How about motivating some of these kids? There really is no reason why we shouldn't have 50 to 60 varsity players out for football and yet year in and year out, I see potentially good athletes not going out because it's just too much work.

The Trojans will come along and if it's not this year it will be next.

I am watching them march down the field and making plays. The terrible teams like Western can't even sustain a drive. The Trojans do. If the team just cleans up a few mistakes, they will be winning more games and taking names.

Brandon Schneider will be fighting in October. It could be his last fight as an amateur (story to come with more info). After all why get beat up for free when you could get paid for it, right? He is a perfect example of what I was talking about above. Schneider took up fighting because he was good at it. But he also did it because it kept him occupied and away from drugs. He is so busy now with training that he has no time for drugs. He definitely is not a lazy athlete.

Here is a funny story about Brandon. I run into him at the gym now and then where he trains and we both took a body sculpting class with George Arceo on different days. I was hurting after the class because during the class Arceo has you pick up some dumbbells and he just burns your muscles with them during the workout. I thought I would be manly and used some 10 pounders. By the end of that session I had dropped down to 5s. Knowing that Schneider took the class, I asked Arceo about him and he said Schneider is good at conditioning but when he took the class he started off with 10s too but also didn't finish with them.

"This middle-aged lady who had been taking the class with me for a long time then turned to Brandon and said, 'Are you whining,' as he dropped down to a lower weight with the dumbbells," Arceo related with a smile. So, it's good to know that even the toughest of guys whine a little.

Schneider was recently honored at Draft Picks, a local sports bar, who put his jersey and Tuff N Uff lightweight title belt in a case on the wall.