Engineering a complete review in youth soccer
Last weekend I was a speaker at the Pop Warner Treasure Coast Trainers Clinic held in the West Palm Beach, Florida area. Also speaking was Bill Powers, head football coach at Jupiter Christian High School. Bills teams have won back-to-back state championships and are on a 28-game winning streak. What’s amazing about this story is that Jupiter Christian before the Bills came along had never had a winning season. In fact, the 2 years prior to the arrival of the Bills, the team went 2-17 and was outscored by over 600 combined points. The previous head coach resigned, declared the football program “dead” and suggested it be discontinued.
Under the leadership of Bill Powers, the school not only went 45-5 and won 2 state titles, but now competes with and surpasses schools with much larger enrollments. Jupiter Christian has only 250 students, but Jupiter regularly competes against schools with student populations of 400, 600, 1,000, and yes, even one with 2,000+ students. In 2008 they played 3 different 4A schools with enrollments of 1500 or more. Perennial powers like Glades Day dot the calendar for Jupiter Christians, as well as even outside the power states of North Carolina and Georgia. This season their schedule includes several 4A schools again and even a 5A school (Lake Worth) with over 2,000 students. These guys are high school football Fresno State, anyone, anytime, anywhere.
What kind of ammo?
What seems so strange about this story is that the team is not made up of big kids or great athletes. Not a single Jupiter Christian player on a Bill Powers team has played Division I soccer on a scholarship. In fact, starting quarterback Marshyl Rothman wasn’t even sure he liked football, he was a hockey player and is only 5’8″ and 170lbs. Starting fullback/linebacker Will Powers (son of Bill ) started out as a sophomore on the offensive line, before moving up to fullback. At just 5’7″ and 185 pounds, he looks like a throwback to those game clips from 2007, wearing the number 65 jersey.
Watching the Jupiter Christian game movie is like watching a David vs. Goliath movie in almost every game. The first thing I noticed was the striking disparities in size, especially on the offensive line. In many of the shots, it looked like a college team lined up against a Pop Warner Midget team. The second thing I noticed was the incredible speed of Christian’s offensive line, as well as the excellent execution and consistent effort from this entire team.
From youth coach to high school state championships
Another kick to this unlikely story, Bill Powers and his staff had never coached high school football before taking over Jupiter Christian. Bill was a former state trooper, then a stockbroker, then a successful business owner. However, he had been a very successful trainer for Pop Warner. Yes folks, he went straight from youth soccer to winning state titles through the high school ranks. His offensive line coach Tom Morton, offensive coordinator Jim Davis and assistant Tim Derrico trained with Bill at Pop Warner.
Fortunately for me, my good friend Kevin Justice knows Bill Powers well and arranged for Bill and I to have lunch and dinner together while I was in Florida. I wanted to know what was so special about Bill Powers and how he engineered this amazing change. Bill Powers has a very strong presence, at 49 it seems like he was a few years away from being able to strap himself in and play himself. Like his offense, he’s very economical with his words, he uses just the bare minimum to get the job done, no fluff. Confident, but modestly giving credit to his assistants, players, and support management, he’s an easy interview, my kind of person.
how they did it
When asked which 5 actions of hers had the biggest impact in changing the program, she didn’t have to think of a thing, the answers flowed quickly. She felt the number one reason for the change was to make the kids believe they could win. She constantly bombarded them with stories of the unlikely hero, the player or team they all thought was too small or not athletic enough to prevail, but did. He told his players about his friend Sam Mills, a 5’7″ Pro Bowl linebacker, whom no one wanted out of high school. After a stellar career at Montclair State, a Division III school, Mills was cut from 2 NFL squads as well as a CFL team Two full years after playing his last college, he found out in the USFL and his coach Jim Mora took Mills with him to the Saints and then the Carolina Panthers , where he went on to play in 5 professional Bowls.
Powers sold his sons on the idea that they had no choice but to outplay their opponents to compete. He made them face the harsh realities of the disparities in numbers and size they would face and sold them that the only solution was to outmaneuver their opponents. His mantra is “overachieve”, guide his every action, break all obstacles with him. They’re relentless, whether they’re lifting weights, doing speed training, doing 7v7, or playing lacrosse for Jupiter Christian with, you guessed it, Bill Powers at the helm. Bill is a huge fan and supporter of football players who play lacrosse.
Powers and his staff started at ground zero with this team and haven’t deviated much from their ground zero practice plans. They are fans of the perfect fundamentals, the level of the pad, the footwork, the sway of the hips, they leave nothing to the imagination. They don’t play much, but they work every day on the basic blocking and tackling that is the cornerstone of any great team. The schemes Bill Powers’ teams run aren’t complex, in fact they probably run fewer than 20 different plays. But they use a lot of formations and moves to gain advantages. The Bills’ offense reflects his minimalist approach to the game, breaking the game down into a few critical success factors and requiring perfect execution and a sustained effort of 4-5 seconds on each play.
The Jupiter Christian coaching staff demands that their players play with enthusiasm, 100% effort and execution. They hold the kids to that standard, and by all appearances it seems like the kids are “all in,” to use a popular poker phrase.
Coach Powers was also quick to credit the school’s administration for their support, as well as the hard work of his very dedicated but now growing coaching staff. They study film endlessly to improve their equipment. While they certainly scrutinize every opponent’s film, you find this team of movie junkies looking more into how they can improve their execution and get every last bit of talent out of the hand they’re dealt. That includes things like having one of your best young running backs starting on the offensive line.
Learned lessons
One of the biggest benefits I get from all the trainer clinics I do is being able to sit down and learn from guys like Bill Powers. Luckily, I get the benefit of his 4 years of real life experiences, without having to go through it myself. Simply put, there aren’t many like him, however, having done so much with so little in such a short period of time and with a coaching pedigree many long-time coaches would turn up their noses at.
For those of us trying to change a difficult situation, there is hope, there is a template you can follow, it can be done. But the answer is in the economy, don’t try to do too much, but what you do, perfect it. Make children believe in themselves, that they can succeed, give them hope. Know what you have and what you have to do to be successful, be the best fundamental blocking and tackling team in your league.
Hold your kids accountable for playing with enthusiasm, 100% effort, and perfect execution. Worry about your players going “all in” and you can get the kind of effort that Bills kids give. Train with enthusiasm and intensity and lead by example, you can teach work ethic. As Coach Powers showed, there are some concepts that are universal to both youth and high school football teams, whether or not you decide to apply them is up to you.
Many thanks to Bill Powers for spending time with me to help me understand how they achieved this remarkable turnaround so that other coaches can help their children have a much more enjoyable season. He is the best, best of luck to him and the Jupiter Christian kids this year with the brutal schedule ahead.
Here are some clips of Bill’s son Will Powers and the Jupiter Christian Eagles. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BvtjYIhUKk
