John Harbaugh on Why Football Matters

Some of you may have seen this post by John Harbaugh several weeks ago, but I thought it deserved a link on here. I also thought it went well with the mission posts from the last few days. We love football and take our job as coaches very seriously. A lot of the reasons why are spelled out by Mr. Harbaugh. Good stuff.

2015 Annual Report

Building on yesterday's post, one of the things we wanted to do this off-season was to create a scorecard for ourselves. This annual report would take a look at what we did last season with respect to those base building blocks of our pyramid. Strong houses are constructed on strong foundations, and we see the off-season as an opportunity to make sure that our house is in order.

Here's a look at how we did:

Click for a bigger view

Great job, Rocks. Let's build on this for the upcoming season.

Our Mission

You may or may not have noticed that I've started using tags like #RockFamily, #RockFun, #RocksMakeADifference. Today, I wanted to share some of our program ideals today in order to put those tags and tomorrow's post in proper context. But first, our program motto:

Our Mission is to make playing football at Westfield one of the most incredible experiences of your life while pushing you to reach your full potential in all areas.

With that in mind, we developed our Pyramid of Success, creating a visual structure that can be utilized to reach one's full potential.

Shamrock Pyramid of Success

• Family – Love your teammates like yourself. Put their needs before your own. 
• Commitment to Excellence – Promise to do everything you can to reach your full potential in all areas. Be intrinsically motivated and driven. 
• Fun – Approach each day with an enthusiastic attitude never before seen by man. Have a blast being a Rock! 
• Victory with Honor – Compete to win at all times. Win the right way, with class. 
• Make a Difference – Serve others and attempt to make someone’s life better every day. Practice selflessness and put others’ needs before your own. There are people in need right here in Westfield. One person is significant enough to make a difference in the entire world. 
• Character – Who you are when no one is looking. Be honest, accountable, respectful, and responsible. Discipline – Doing the right thing, the right way, all of the time. 
• Effort –Work as hard as you possibly can, at all things, all the time. 
• Focus – Focus on what’s in front of you right now. This workout, this off-season, this practice, etc. When adversity hits, refocus and play the next play. 
• Physicality – Consistently develop yourself physically in the weight room and gym, while playing other sports, by eating right, and while stretching. Play physical and out hit your opponent. 
• Confidence – Believe in yourself and believe in the process. Be courageous. Play fast and aggressive. 
• Toughness – Being able to maintain control of your goals and vision in the face of mental and physical challenges. 
• Trust – Trust the process and believe that everything will work out for the best if you do everything you are supposed to do. Trust in your teammates to do the right thing. Be trustworthy and loyal to your teammates. 
• Leadership – Influence others vocally and by example. Develop your character and relationships with others to lead them in a positive way. 
• Full Potential – Become the best you can possibly be, in all ways, at all times. Be improvement driven, but always be happy with your very best.

Relay For Life Update

We're just over a week away from the Westfield Relay for Life, and we only have 20 people signed up. That can't be right. We know our family is bigger than that.

So just in case you missed the first announcement, I'm going to throw it out there again. Our community (not just the school!) is holding a cancer fundraiser (Relay for Life) on May 15. We want to raise $10,000 by then. We have almost $1,000 right now, with only 20 people signed up. I would wager that there are more than 200 people involved in our extended football family. We need everyone to hit this goal.

Please consider joining the team, donating if you'd like, and walking/running if you can. With cancer touching so many lives these days, we all have a vested interest in seeing this disease stamped out.

Goal #4: Fun

The Rocks recently tackled some rocks in a more vertical fashion than we normally do, and Coach Gilbert had this to say after the experience...

Westfield Football is a blast! We love to have fun together. For starters, its fun to win and we are doing a lot of that. We also love to compete and we have fun playing all kinds of sports and engaging in all kinds of competitions every single week. Dodgeball, human tug of war, towel fight, floor hockey, baseball, and obstacle courses are some of our favorites. We also make a point to hang out together and do fun things that have nothing to do with football. Over the past four years we have gone to college football games, had square dances and fall parties, gone to Sky Zone, gone rock climbing, and hired a hypnotist! None of these things help us block and tackle better, but they definitely build family and help us achieve our fourth program goal: FUN!

Check out a couple of the pics below: