Player's Perspective: Jacob Tebbe

Today's post was written by one of our family members, Jacob Tebbe. In it, he reflects on the recent trip he took with the team down to Henryville, Indiana to help with disaster relief efforts. Here's what Jacob has to say...

Henryville, Indiana is a small town in southern Indiana that got caught in the path of a devastating tornado. We went down to help the people of the community and tried to give back to a state that means so much to us. I, personally, went to Henryville because I felt thankful for all the blessings I have received and felt horrible for the people in Henryville who lost everything. I felt that it was the least I could do to help out for a day and make an impact on the community. The people of Henryville were extremely appreciative of our help and couldn't stop thanking us while we were there. They even wanted us to come back the following Monday.

At the warehouse, we worked to make bags of food for a family of four. We were given a list of things needed to be included in the food bag. The bags included items like noodles, cereal, fruit, rice, beans, and canned items like green beans and corn. The warehouse was unorganized and very scattered, so we worked to not only make the bags, but to make them more efficiently by first organizing the warehouse. Once the warehouse was organized, we worked diligently to make a large sum of bags to help many families in the area. It felt great to make an impact on the community and see that impact through our progress in making the bags. We packed 122 boxes of food. Each box feeds a family of four for a week!

Not only did we help the community of Henryville, but we also helped ourselves in becoming closer as a team. Family is our number one priority as a team and it was nice to see those relations improve, our family strengthen. At the warehouse, specifically, we had to work together to reach a common goal of making a maximum amount of food bags. We all worked together to make the assembly line and make the bags as fast as possible. These experiences not only were great team building exercises, but were also helping people at the same time. The trip was a great experience for everyone involved, and I'm glad we got the chance to give back to the community.

#WhyICoach - Coach Sattison

For me, coaching was always something I wanted to do. When I was younger, I was looked at as sort of a “coach on the field” for whatever team I was on. I never had a problem telling people what I thought needed to happen, stepping up, and being in control of the game. This was the case for my entire athletic career. It was then that I thought I would enjoy coaching... I mean who wouldn’t? Being in total control of the team was what I thought I always wanted.

Little did I know that as I matured, my views on WHY I wanted to coach would completely shift. As I realized the affect that the game of football was having on me as a man, an overwhelming sense of obligation came to rest on my shoulders. With all that it had done for me, I owed it to the game of football to give back. It wasn’t about a power trip. It wasn’t about being able to tell players what to do. It had nothing to do with “control” at all. It was about life lessons; initiative, doing the little things, teamwork, completing tasks the right way, leadership, responsibility, accountability, hard work, and the list truly could go on and on. For as much as I thought I was molding the players around me to complete tasks that I wanted finished, the players around me and the game itself was shaping the individual that I would become.

I have been blessed with a wonderful family; I have two parents who I would argue are the best parents on the planet, and a brother and sister who I am extremely close with and know I can count on in any situation. I am even very close with my brother-in-law, and I’m not sure how many people can say that with confidence. The amazing thing about football is that I describe my “football” family using the same enthusiasm and the same adjectives. We are close. We can trust each other. We can rely on each other when times get tough and life deals us a hand that we thought we would have to play alone. My football family at every level has helped me grow, solidify the principles that my parents initially instilled in me, and cultivated me into the man I am today. It is not up for debate: I would NOT be the person I am today without football. I would have missed out on meeting the people who have become my true best friends, and my extended family without football.

I hear all this talk about concussions, about how barbaric our game is, about all the potentials for harm, and I can’t help but think of some of my favorite of John Wooden’s “Life’s Little Puzzlers.” They read, “Why is it so much easier to criticize than to compliment? Why is it easier to give blame than credit? Why is it so much easier to be negative than it is to be positive?” I relate all of these ideas back to the topic at hand. Why is it that we are so quick to criticize the game of football while we remain blind to its positive attributes? Why during these talks does not one person speak to the long term benefits of the game, while they tear down and condemn every step taken on the field? Just like you feel the need to step in and protect a family member if they are being attacked in any way, so too do we feel this obligation to our game. I coach because I could never repay the debt that I owe to this game. I coach because when used effectively as a tool, football WILL help create society’s next generation of successful men. I coach because if I aid just one of our kids to have the same experience that I had, then I know something as simple as High School football can not only be one of the best experiences in a young man’s life, but can have the impact to change a future for the better. I love this game.

Thank you, and God Bless.

Leadership Power Points

If you missed any of the leadership meetings, go to the website and select the one(s) you missed under the leadership link.

Leadership

Don't forget about leadership meeting today after school!

Morning Workouts

Skill Players - Don't forget we have a workout tomorrow morning at 6:00 sharp!

-Coach Carnes

#WhyICoach - Coach Carnes

I went to Wabash College to play football after high school. At the end of my football career, I realized I wasn’t ready to be done. The game had completely changed my life and had such an incredible impact on who I had become. Football taught me that no matter how physically and emotionally exhausted I was, I could always push on a little bit further. It taught me the importance of character, leadership, working together for a common cause, how to deal with success, how to deal with heartache and failure; it taught me about life. The game of football gave me the confidence that if I could make it through everything I conquered on the field, even those things I thought I couldn’t do or thought I wasn’t strong enough to do, surely nothing else in life would be that difficult… at least not physically. My coaches pushed me way past anything I was comfortable with or thought I could do on my own, and showed me the power of dreaming big and not settling for just good enough. I can name every football coach I have ever had, exactly what he taught me, and how he changed my life forever and made me a better man. I was lucky enough to have the greatest parents in the world, but those men who invested in me played just as big of a role in my journey from being a boy to becoming a man. They taught me more about life and the right way to do things than any other single thing, person, or life experience with the exception of my father. They invested incredible amounts of time in my life and my success. Those coaches showed me a selflessness that I still admire to this day. Some of the people I most respect and admire in this world today were at some point my football coach.

That is why I coach. I feel a deep, inner debt to those men and what they did for me that I will never be able to repay. But that doesn't mean I can’t try. If I can have half of the impact my coaches had on my life in the life of one of my players, it will be worth all of my time, energy, sweat, and tears. The time a coach is required to be away from his immediate family is incredibly straining and difficult, but when that time is spent with your extended family that you love just about as much, it makes it much better. Not easier...but definitely worth it.

I love teaching and working with young men on the practice field. I love the community I work, teach, and live in. I consider myself extremely blessed to be able to do something I love every single day.

I don’t want my players to like me or be my friend—I want them to look back in twenty years and think, “I am glad Coach Carnes was in my life,” and know how much I loved them.

That’s why I coach.

#WhyICoach - Coach Patchett

As a college student-athlete, I thought I knew what I wanted to do. I was going to get my business degree and then go work on Wall Street. Then, one day while on the practice field with the sun shining bright, a bit of a chill in the air, and the smell of fresh mowed grass and fall leaves, I realized there was no other place in the world I would rather be. That day on the practice field in the mountains of North Carolina saved me from a life of cubicles and insane pressure.  I realized at that moment, my place was with the game that gave me everything.

Football has given me so much. I have the education that I have because of football. If not for football, I probably would have never been able to afford or pursue a college education.  Because of that education, I am able to live and work in the best community in the state. With that education, I was able to lure a pretty little blonde to be my wife and she has given me two wonderful sons.

Football has taught me so many wonderful lessons and made me much more mentally tough and optimistic. It has taught me that anything can be accomplished through hard work.  Football has taught me that no matter what life throws at me, that with a positive attitude, patience, and a desire to never give up, there is nothing I can’t overcome.  Football and being part of a team taught me about respect, team work, and loyalty.  Football has taught me to not get too high when things are good and not too low when things are bad. Every play can have a different outcome and emotion.

I coach football because I love teaching and the practice field gives me a forum to help young boys become men. It is a place that mimics life's successes and failures.  The practice and game fields are a microcosm of life with victories and losses on each play. Other than days spent with my family, there is no place I would rather be, than on a football practice field surrounded by my guys.

I once was told that to be successful you should surround yourself with wise and successful people. Through football, I have met some of the wisest men that I know.  Men who are winners on the athletic fields and in life. I have been able to take lessons from each of them and apply them to how I live my life.  When life throws me a curveball, I often catch myself thinking about the lessons those men and the game have taught me.

Lastly, I coach football, because it gives me a chance to expand my family.  When I coach your sons, I love them as my own and expect the same things from them as I do my own.  There are days when, just like my real kids, they upset me, or I upset them.  I get to watch them grow up and become fathers and responsible citizens. I watch them use the same lessons that I started learning as a 7 year old many years ago to go about their lives and become successful.  I coach, because the bonds created by this game we love, last forever.

Henryville

Here are a few pictures from the trip this past weekend...enjoy!

#WhyICoach - Coach Hofferth

My name is Matt Hofferth, and I am a proud member of the Westfield High School football family. I am not a teacher, nor a paid coach. I commute each day to Kokomo, IN, where I am an Electrical Engineer for Delphi Electronics and Safety. I volunteer as a football coach in my free time because I love the sport and desire to make an impact on the lives of young people.

When I was in high school, my life was similarly impacted. My father died when I was 18. He had a disease called Neurosarcoidosis. Studies report that the disease has a prevalence of less than 4 per 100,000 people. In those four, the disease is rarely fatal. Even with the best doctors, however, my father appeared to be the exception.

The majority of my high school experience was marred by a medical struggles, a fight for survival. Teenage years can be tough enough without the instability disease brings to the table. It's hard to remember a lot of the time fondly. Much of it was spent in and out of hospitals, breathlessly waiting on the next batch of tests to glean an understanding of our fate. I credit the sport of football, and the connections I made as part of a football family, for getting me through the difficult years. I appreciate football for giving me a bright spot to look back on.

My father, sometimes wheelchair bound, struggled to make it to my games. He was a baseball guy; he had never played a down of football in his life, yet he used the time afforded by extended sick leave to study up on the game so that he understood the rules and could support me like every other father. By the time we made it to the state finals my junior year, he could understand many of the finer points, and certainly discuss the various swings the game took with special attention payed to my part in each. He may not have fully understood the mentality (football, it seems, requires a somewhat unique mindset), but he knew intimately what it meant to compete, to fight. He loved sports, and anything that instilled that same sense of fight in his son, he bought in to.

Injuries, setbacks, illness, these things are a part of the game as much as they are a part of life. Often, confronting mortality is a very daunting prospect, at any age. I believe football was instrumental to my understanding of life and living. We were state runners-up the year before my dad died, and the very next year we fell one game short of a return to the finals. My football career ended with loss, like most others. But adversity is one of the best teachers. Yes, I learned how to win, but I also learned what it meant to lose. And how to pick myself back up, rub some dirt on it, and play the next down. The friends and coaches I met through my involvement with football, they were my brothers, my surrogate fathers throughout my ordeal. They pushed and encouraged me, challenged me to get better, to stay strong. They drove me to the hospital. They were there when I received the call. They extended the line out the door and around the corner at my father's wake.

Recently, the sport I love has come under fire in the media. People decry the brutality of it, the negative effect it has on the human body. People question whether or not they should encourage their children to play.

One thing I have failed to see many of these articles address is the very positive effect it has on the human spirit. I am not the first, nor the last, former player that could claim that my involvement with football has taught me a lot of what I know about being an adult. Even, or perhaps especially, the little things. It's funny how many simple life lessons are overlooked until you lose a role model. For instance, I learned how to shave from my teammates; my father wasn't around to teach me (I was also, admittedly, a late bloomer in the facial hair department). It was a coach that taught me how to tie a tie.

I do not have kids yet, but I plan to in the near future. Perhaps, many parents will say, I do not understand what it means to have a child, to want to protect a child. I am the oldest of four. I have two brothers that are 6 years younger than me (twins), and a sister that is 13 years younger. Anyone who has lost a parent at a young age can tell you that the eldest is often expected to step up and assist with the load of child rearing. This isn't to say my mother was not capable. She did a wonderful job (and I will thank her properly again this coming Sunday). But, like when a teammate goes down to injury on the field, there is an empty spot in the roster. The game requires a full team, and someone needs to step up and play. No one asks why in sports; this is just a truth.

I may not be a parent in name, but I know what it means to love and want to protect someone. I encouraged my brothers to play football, when the time came. I attended every game of theirs that I conceivably could. I'm exceedingly proud of the young men they've become. When I have kids of my own, I will encourage (not force) them to play as well. Football has given so much to me, why would I not want that for my children?

I have never had a concussion. The only bone I've broken is my pinky finger. I had knee surgery once, but it had nothing to do with sports (I was in an accident when I was 10). I've had many sprains and bruises, but none that really haunt me to this day, at least physically. The biggest scars that remain for me are emotional.

I coach because a secondary family is worth all the sweat, blood, and tears. I coach to make payments on a personal debt that I can never truly repay. I coach because my father would have enjoyed seeing it. I coach because I love the sport of football. More than just the scoreboards or the jerseys, the paint on the field or on the faces of fans, more than the lights on a Friday night; I coach because I love the marks that football left on me.

#WhyICoach - Intro

Coach Gilbert recently sent an email to the entire coaching staff expressing concern about the string of negative media being shared by major news outlets about our sport. I believe he wanted to make sure we are focused on why we do this, what we are trying to offer. The mission of our program is:

To make Westfield High School Football one of the most unbelievable experiences of a young person's life. 

That is our number one goal. Notice that we do not simply say "high school career," but "life." We believe in our sport. We believe in what it can mean for our student athletes both now and for the rest of their lives. We believe that the benefits greatly outweigh the risks. As such, we wanted to counter some of the negativity with our own personal, positive football experiences. We wanted to share the motivation and drive behind why we coach in the hopes of promoting a greater understanding among the members of our community. Yes, football is a dangerous sport, but it is also a very rewarding one. We pour so much of ourselves into this game because it has poured so much into us.

With that being said, I wanted to introduce a series of posts from us that I'll tag as "Why I Coach." Look for them to trickle in from the coaching staff in the upcoming weeks. If you are player, feel encouraged to share these with your parents to help explain why you want to be a part of the Rock Family. If you're a parent, hopefully these articles offer some insight into the kind of men your kids will be working with and learning from. Hopefully, they will help explain why so many of us love this sport and believe in what it has to offer for everyone involved. It is about so much more than wins and losses, and we want to make believers of all of you.

Together We Win

While less proverbial, here is a much more important message from Coach Patchett...

If you were on the Study table list, you are to come to Study tables every Tuesday - Thursday. Most of you are not taking this seriously and are not showing up. Starting tomorrow those of you who miss can expect to start running a mile for every study table that you miss. You will not be given your equipment until you finish your miles. You must be committed to your studies.

This is serious stuff, guys. If you know someone skipping out, keep in mind they're not just skipping out on their future, but also on the team. Be accountable. Encourage your teammates to commit to excellence. If your brother falls, you pick him up. We don't want anyone to be ineligible come next fall. We need everyone! Together we win.

Leadership PowerPoint

Here is the link if you missed the meeting:  CONFIDENCE PRESENTATION

All Practice pack orders

 Must be turned in immediately.  If you don't have the money, turn in the form!