(In each issue throughout the fall, Glory Days Magazine publisher Dave O’Sullivan talks with an area head football coach about the season and the state of his program. For our Sept. 11 edition, Sully caught up with Mainland skipper Bob Coffey.) Sully: Is it any different this time around, when you are this far into your career, when you get to opening night? Do you still have some butterflies going on? Coffey: You know what? I’m still nervous. I’m a little cranky this week and I keep asking myself why am I so cranky? Then I realize it’s almost opening night. Nothing changes. Sully: What is the biggest difference you have seen in the past 30 years when it comes to high school football? Coffey: I guess it’s just the kids and the parents. Things are different. And there is new technology and everything, so it is tougher. Sully: Is it tough for a guy like you, who has been around the game so long, to continually make adjustments? You are now dealing with kids who are from a different generation. Coffey: You’re constantly revising what you do, and that’s nothing different. Football has always had constant revisions, so that hasn’t changed. I think I’m on my 11th revision as far as my play script goes (for opening night). Sully: What’s been the most gratifying part of your career? There is so much to look back on and you have influenced so many boys along the way in the past 30 years. 
Bob Coffey talks to his team following a preseason practice. Mainland has gotten off to a 1-1 start, falling to Millville in its season opener before rebounding with a big win over Atlantic City on Friday night. (Glory Days Magazine photos/Dave O’Sullivan) Coffey: It’s always nice to have kids come up to you and visit your practices and hear how much you meant to them, how much you have helped them. You don’t really realize it at the time. That’s really the most rewarding. Sully: Do you ever think back to when you were a first-year coach? Did you ever think you would make it 30 years? Coffey: Not in a million years. It’s a blessing. I’m very fortunate to have spent all these years doing what I do, and I don’t take that for granted. Sully: Any thoughts on how long you’ll continue to keep going? That has to be something that is on your mind these days. Coffey: It certainly is on my mind. But I just take it one day at a time and one game at a time. Sully: How special is this year? You have your son, Ty, and you’ve seen him grow up through the program. That has to be a great way to end his career, with his dad on the sidelines. Coffey: It’s always great to go to work with your son, in any job, and see him every single day, and spend that time with him. That’s something that not every parent has the chance to do. Sully: What do you think your emotions will be like during the Thanksgiving game? Hopefully that won’t be your last game of the season, but if it does happen to be, what do you think will be going through your mind when you get to end of that game and give your boy a hug? Coffey: I have to get through that game first. I’m going to coach every single play, and at the very end I’ll take care of those things then. Sully: What’s the biggest thing you have learned in your 30 years of coaching? Coffey: I’ve learned that the people around you are very important and they have so much to offer. Letting them coach and learning things from them is really what strikes me as the most important throughout the years. How much they have to offer, and if they want to coach and work hard, you have to let them do it. Sully: What would you say is the state of Mainland football now? Are you happy with the way things have been going? Coffey: Our schedule has been really difficult the last couple of years. But this year I think we will be able to compete at a higher level than we have in the past couple of years, and that’s really exciting. When you are a public school, you have what you have and you make the best of it. And we aren’t perfect as coaches. Sully: What are you most satisfied with when you look back on your career? Obviously, it’s not over yet, but does anything really pop into your mind? Coffey: My wife, Donna, she has done so much over the years to make it a nice, quality program with the extra things the kids have, like the pasta dinners, taking the kids to the movies, the scholarships, all the things she does. That has really brought us close together as a husband and wife. She’s done the Thanksgiving baskets, the Christmas baskets, just so many nice things for people through our football program. Every once in a while she has to take a day off to work on the ad book, because that pays for all the nice things. It’s a whole summer of work for her. Sully: What do you hope, whenever you do hang ’em up, that people will remember about you? Coffey: I just hope that people will think I was a fair guy and a guy who did the best he could. Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sully@acglorydays.com; on Twitter @GDsullysays [adsense]
Coach speak: Mainland’s Bob Coffey has learned a lot during three decades of coaching
