Coach speak: Community, family at the heart of EHT football coach Kevin Stetser’s approach

(Coach Speak is a feature in which Glory Days Magazine publisher Dave O’Sullivan talks with an area head coach to get their take on the season, the state of their team and the vision they have for the future of the program. Sully recently spoke with Egg Harbor Township football coach Kevin Stetser, who is in his second year leading the Eagles.) Sully: What has it been like for you in Year Two? Is the second year any different than the first? Stetser: I know what to expect a little bit more on a week-to-week basis. Not so much the football stuff, just managing the program overall, dealing with all the outside stuff that comes with that. And also for what we are trying to do, to rebuild this thing and get the community behind us. It’s different. I know what to expect and I’m a little more used to spending time on the weekends going to the youth games and all those types of things. Sully: What has been the biggest difference? When you start something like this you have a vision in your mind of how it’s going to go, then you get into the day-to-day grind and it doesn’t always work out the way you thought it would. Stetser: Really, it’s just been dealing with all the moving parts. We have a big program with a lot of kids and each kid is their own individual. There are always things you have to take care of on that end. We are big on grades and how these guys are behaving, so really just trying to stay on top of the kids that way. And just trying to get the community to support us, making sure we are doing all the right things we are supposed to be doing. Sully: What is something people may not understand about what it’s like on a day-to-day basis being a head football coach? Stetser: I guess one of the biggest things is the time. From the minute I get in the building I’m teaching. I think a lot of times people forget we have another job. We have full-time jobs and then football coaching is a stipend position. But you take on the job because you love it, and you know what it entails. You want to be there and you want to be available for the kids, the parents, the coaches, the community, the youth kids and their coaches. Probably the biggest thing is the amount of time you spend doing it. Sully: Has anything changed in terms of the playbook? Have you gotten a set of plays that just isn’t working and you toss it out and go with something new? How much has your philosophy of running plays changed now that you’ve gotten 15 games under your belt? Kevin Stetser, a former Egg Harbor Township High School football player, is in his second year as head coach of the Eagles. (Glory Days Magazine photos/Dave O’Sullivan) Stetser: The way we set up our offense, we’re a large public school and we’re not sure what we are going to have from year to year, but we try to make our offense so that we can be multiple. We run the Pro-I, which allows us to do a lot of different things. That may change or progress as we go through the year, but as far as our overall philosophy we have stayed with what our vision was. Sully: What have you learned so far in terms of dealing with the emotions, whether it be the high of a big win or coming off a tough loss? How have you learned to deal with that and move on to the next game? Stetser: We’ve had some big wins and some big losses already. You try to stay even-keeled. You rely on things you remembered as a player, not get too high with the wins and not get too low with the losses, and keep some perspective. You have to remember that you are dealing with teenagers. Anytime you put 22 teenagers out on a football field, you don’t know what’s going to happen. We try to stick to our plan. We feel like our philosophy is sound and we try to stay with that as much as possible. Sully: You guys have a coaching staff that has a lot of guys who are at similar stages of their lives, they have families with young kids. How big is that to have their support and know you guys are all kind of going through the same thing? Stetser: Everyone does understand that. We are very conscious of that. If guys have things they need to take care of with their family, we are OK with that. There are times when I have to take care of things with my family, and the staff understands that. We preach family amongst our kids, and we believe it. The players all see my kids around, and other coaches kids around, so they see what we are saying is what we believe. I think it has an impact on the players to know that we are family first and that is what’s important to us. Sully: What’s been the best thing about the past year and a half? This is kind of a dream job for you. Stetser: It is. It may sound corny or cliche, but I like to give back to a place that gave a lot to me. Getting to help kids experience some of the things I got to experience, being a part of something where you grew up. I grew up here, left for a while, then came back. I like being a part of a community I grew up in. It’s where my kids are going to go through school and I like being a positive part of that. I want to help build something positive for the future. And not just on the football field, there’s a bigger message overall. Sully: When you look at some of the old-timers, like Bob Coffey over at Mainland, do you ever think you’ll make it 30 years? Stetser: Well, I started a little later than them. I got my first head coaching gig at age 38. If I can make it that long it would be fantastic. I plan on doing this as long as they’ll have me. As long as it stays fun, which I can’t imagine it wouldn’t. As a staff, we like the work and we like putting in the hours. We spend a lot of time together as a staff, so it’s important that you have good relationships. Who knows, maybe I will go into my 80s. I would have to be doing pretty well for that to happen. Sully: What is the 5-year plan for this program? Where would you like to see it in a couple of years? Stetser: No. 1, we want to do a good job of having our kids stay at home, that’s a big goal of ours. And we want to be a Group 5 contender. We want to compete year-in and year-out. We are a large enough school where we think we can do that. We want to put a team out there every year that is competing for conference titles, competing for state titles, and doing it the right way. That’s a big part of what we are trying to do, to really hammer home to these kids that winning is a result of doing all the other things right. We certainly feel like we can become a program that competes for titles every year. Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sully@acglorydays.com; on Twitter @GDsullysays [adsense]