The 4th Phase of Football: Over 60 ways to build, celebrate & promote your players and team culture

By Steve Scanlon

The 4th Phase of Football explores the intangible factors that lead to teams and players being perennially successful. Regardless of players graduating or changes in talent from year to year, the program continues to have success and provide rewarding and formative experiences for those involved. The 3 phases of the game of football being offense, defense and special teams, the 4th phase dives into a collection of ideas that help excite players and validate their efforts and sacrifice for the team. The belief is the more you work to make your team special, the more people will invest into it and want to be a part of it. Allowing your team and the time you get to influence your players during a critical time in their lives to be more impactful.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 10, 2024
• ISBN: 9798350956320

Steve Scanlon

Steve Scanlon is a football coach for the last 17 years at both the high school and collegiate level. Earning multiple Coach of the Year honors as well as multiple Sportsmanship awards as a high school head coach. A former team Captain as a player in high school and college, Steve experienced winless seasons as a player in high school and undefeated seasons as a player and coach in college. Steve has vast experience and specializes in helping programs turn around and find new heights of success and is a believer that what you do off the field is more important than the x's and o's you use on it. That sports are a microcosm of life and a chance to help develop people to be the most successful version of themselves.

Book preview

Chp. 1 Tell us…

Tell us about some of the formative experiences that have impacted you wanting to be a head coach?

I recently interviewed for a high school football head coaching position and this was the first question I was asked. It was a 12 person panel during the first round.

"Certainly. My journey to pursuing being a head coach probably began during my high school playing experience. I moved from inner city Philadelphia, to Cherry Hill NJ. It might as well have been another planet. In Philly I went to Roman Catholic in Center City. That year Roman won a Catholic League Championship. When we moved I went to Cherry Hill East and it was the opposite end of the spectrum as far as football success. During my time playing Varsity football, we were 2-28.

2-8

0-10 and

0-10.

When I would look around at my teammates I felt we had talented enough players that would start on the other teams we played. Yet when we’d play the teams on our schedule, many of which were perennial powers and playoff contenders in South Jersey, we’d lose. I’d ask myself;

What are these teams doing right, that we are doing wrong? Or weren’t

doing right enough. That was kind of the beginning of me starting to try and

look at things through the lens of a coach.

I left high school, and my academics were so poor that I didn’t get accepted

to the FCS program I was supposed to go play for. The next year I went from

being an athlete in a high school to a nobody at a community college. I

hated it. My first semester I got a 2.0 and was placed on academic

probation.

At a community college…I didn’t even know they did that. The next semester

luckily I figured things out. I made the Dean’s list for the first time and

remained on it every semester through my undergrad. I continued to train

and through connections in recruiting, I was excited to be joining a big time

college football program that summer.

I had some minor health issues I had been dealing with and was eager to get them cleared up before leaving. It turned out they were bigger than I thought. I was diagnosed with cancer at the age 19. I had several surgeries in July and August. Then began a rigorous chemotherapy regimen (BEP). I went from 225 lbs down to the point where I fell into the 170’s and stopped looking at the scale during appointments. I was violently sick, couldn’t eat for a full week at a time. What I felt carried me through this time was the skill set I learned through football. It directly prepared me for the challenges I was facing. Like a good team or family, when I was too worn down or tired to pick myself up alone, my teammates, family, friends and loved ones were there to help pick me up. I would get 5 hours of treatment per day through an IV. I could feel it throughout my body. I would deal with horrific side effects, but on November 8th I received my last treatment of chemo. I was very grateful that it would be behind me.

As things settled back to being more normal, on the day after Thanksgiving, my Dad passed away unexpectedly. He was 42. What I learned in football taught me how to handle things when life’s adversity attacks. Not getting knocked down, but when we get back up. 8 months later I was playing college football at Wesley College. Coach Drass and his program showed me a blueprint of how to be successful in football and more importantly, how to apply that to life. Our teams went 45-7 when I played. The next two seasons I finished my Masters degree and got to be a college coach. We went 25-2. So I learned immediately, first hand, what struggling programs do when I was in high school and then was shown what elite programs do in college. Back home there was a bar called Kaminski’s. I’d go there with my friends when home and every time we were there, there would be a guy 2 years older than us who was a great Linebacker from East that didn’t go on to college, sitting at the bar. Or a great Offensive Lineman from West 4 years older than us, at the bar. Or a Safety from East 8 years older, and a Defensive Lineman 10 years older. All at the same bar together. I often questioned how many lives weren’t fulfilled to the best of their ability because of the failure to build a program that develops and launches young people, prepared to be successful in life? It bothered me and led me towards a path of wanting to use my own life experience and really jealousy of the experience I wished I had, to build the program that I wanted and needed to be a part of. To maximize the number of young people I could help positively impact, through the game and with the life lessons of football."

You could hear a pin drop. One person was moved to tears during my answer and story. From that moment on I felt I had complete control of the interview.

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CHP. 2 Meeting of the Minds

I have always been grateful and wanted to learn from younger or first time coaches. Specifically, I wanted to pick their brains and learn their stories. Learn why they decided to coach. I recommend anywhere you coach, learn the stories of the people you coach with. It exponentially compounds your power to impact your players when you learn about each other’s driving force.

Recently I was coaching in College and knew I would be moving on to a new role. It put a unique perspective into focus for me. I was coaching with two guys who just finished their senior season with our team and now were coaching. I asked them about where they want to be in the profession and what motivated them. They shared great answers about their gratitude for the people who coached them and the desire to share their experience and be impactful to others. They were impact driven. Our Head Coach made great choices bringing them on.

Something I did each off season, usually in February as a head coach was to host a meeting of the minds. I would get my entire staff together. We would break bread on a Friday night, get tons of food, guys would have their drink of choice and I would provide a detailed outline of the things I wanted to discuss. It would usually be closing out or finalizing things we discussed from the previous season. It could be good, bad or indifferent. Then unveil my next year’s plan. I would provide all schedules and calendars, talk about our roster, where we stood schematically. I would express my expectations for the upcoming season. We would go around the table and everyone would have a say. It was a great chance to get together and bond as a staff.

One off season I presented something I wanted each of us to do. I created a form for our players. On it they were going to dedicate their efforts to someone or something. They were to write down their why or motivation for playing. We had an area where they’d complete season goals for themselves, the team and then their life. Then I let the staff know I would be asking them to share their why also.

I went first. For me there are two people who I always think of through a coaching lens. The first is my younger brother Sean. To this day he was the best high school football player I ever saw. He was a tenacious leader, a genius on the field. Like a virtuoso artist. In control at all times. He was terrifying to opponents. He was like watching lightning. At any moment he’d strike and rip off a 60 yard Touchdown run or with the flick of his wrist a 60 yard Touchdown pass. He was larger than life. People came to see him. He played like Mike Vick.

Ultimately that is what many places at the next level weren’t sold on. He was a 6’0 190 lb QB who was as dangerous with his legs as his arm at a time when colleges were looking for guys that were 6’5 225 lbs and would sit in the pocket. Not many programs were comfortable playing with a QB like Sean. Today they dominate college football and the NFL.