NHSACA PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

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National High School Athletic Coaches Association

Greetings from your President,

It is hard to believe that the fall sport seasons are about ready to get started.  As your President I will promise to work hard to make NHSACA a little better with all of your help.  The NHSACA continues to stay busy, continuing to promote high school sports all year long. 

The 2010 National Convention will be held in Sioux Falls, South Dakota at the Ramkota Hotel (605-336-0650).  Things that will be offered to you at our convention: 

• June 19-20 (2 grad credits offered from the University of Sioux Falls) Leadership Class.

• June 21-23 (3 grad credits offered from the University of Sioux Falls) Sports Specific Class.  

• On Monday, June 21 there will be a FCA Luncheon with Dr. Tom Osborne, former University of Nebraska head football coach and present AD at the University of Nebraska, as the keynote speaker at noon.  One free luncheon with a convention registration.

• Tuesday, June 22 will be the NHSACA Hall of Fame Noon Luncheon.  South Dakota Night will be held on Tuesday night with a free Whooper feed sponsored by Dakota King.

• Wednesday, June 23 will be the NHSACA National Coach of the Year Banquet.  We will be awarding our first Assistant Coach of the Year Awards for Boys Sports and Girls Sports. 

• We are going to have tours of downtown Sioux Falls and the City’s namesake, Falls Park.  We are working on Sioux Falls Canaries baseball tickets to be available and some golf outing possibilities.

We are working on many things for the 45th National Coaches Convention.  We will keep you informed about other happenings for the convention.

Please start making your plans to visit South Dakota next June.  You will get an opportunity to see and feel South Dakota hospitality. 

I know I’m the luckiest President in the world to have a great board and an outstanding Executive Director to work with.  Together we can get many things done with just a little help from all of us.  Thank you for all your efforts to make America’s high school sports a little better.  Please contact me if you have any questions or ideas for NHSACA.

Thinking of NHSACA,

Virg Polak

President - NHSACA

Watertown, SD  57201

email:  Virg.Polak@k12.sd.us

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A Message from President Harold Shepherd 2008-2009

It’s More Than Just A Game… When Mother Nature decides to get angry, the results can be devastating.  Natural disasters have played havoc with our everyday lives in all parts of the country. My home state, Iowa, experienced tornadoes and floods, that were record breaking in damage and human suffering.

Aplington-Parkersburg High School is rich in football tradition. This small rural Iowa school of about 230 students has four of its alumni currently playing in the National Football League. May 25, a level EF5 tornado (winds of  200 mph or more) swept through Parkersburg leveling about one third of its homes, the high school, and several businesses, and damaging nearly every other building in the town.  Football coach Ed Thomas, an NHSACA 2004 COTY finalist, was in his basement when the tornado hit. His house was blown away above him. One of his assistant coaches, his wife and two young children had no basement to go to. They huddled in a closet repeating a portion of the 28th Psalm as the tornado approached. When the dust settled, they walked out of their closet, the only part of their home still standing.  Another football assistant coach’s home was spared, but a neighbor’s life was not. Coach Michael Irvin moved debris off his seventy-four year old neighbor, and helped him to his feet, only to have him suffer an apparent heart attack. Resuscitation efforts revived him temporarily, but he died in the hospital the next day. He was the eighth fatality as a result of the storm.  As things quieted, and people emerged from their shelters, no one was sure what to do or where to go. Inexplicably, Coach Thomas and several of the town’s people gathered at the football field. Named earlier the “Sacred Acre”, the area was a mess. Bleachers and scoreboards were gone, the field itself, which Coach Thomas watered daily and mowed three times a week, was covered with debris.  At the end of each football season Coach Thomas starts a countdown clock in his office that tells days, hours and minutes until the next game. He can always tell you how many days until that next “first” game.  As he and the other people surveyed the damage, he vowed quietly that one hundred, three days later, football would be played again on the “Sacred Acre”.

Businesses donated money and labor. The NFL donated. Individuals, while working on their personal properties, found time to help at the football field. No fewer than five football teams from across the state came to help cleanup efforts. One team, eighty strong, put the finishing touches on the project by crawling side by side and picking up the tiniest of objects from the grass. And September 5th, one hundred, three days after the tornado, football was played in Parkersburg. The crowd numbered more than the combined population of the two communities. Nine camera crews, including ESPN, NBC and even Showtime were in the newly constructed locker-room for the pre-game pep talk. A U.S. Senator was there. The Governor of Iowa was there. The Green Bay Packers sent defensive end Aaron Kampman, one of the four A-P players in the NFL, home to be part of the very special night. There were fireworks after the A-P Falcons won their 2008 home opener 53-20. A few fans proudly wore t-shirts that were tossed into the stands during timeouts with the message “Friday Night Football- It’s More Than Just A Game.” A Des Moines Register newspaper article explained it this way: “… In a place where the high school is the heart of the town, and the football team is the heart of the school, tonight wasn’t just a game.” Or in the words of Stephanie Key, the wife in that huddled football family, mentioned before, that survived in the closet, “It’s kind of like a rebirth, football is kind of the barometer; if football is back on track…that will help the town so much.”

I was a spectator at that football game. I saw the pride in, the love of and the need for that school’s football coach, his staff and the team.

“Friday Night Heroes” aren’t just the players. Coaches are also heroes, and coaches of the NHSACA, you know well the importance of the job you do. Each of you has experienced some significant event, that has impacted you and yours, just as the Parkersburg tornado impacted that school district. Even those of you no longer actively coaching, continue to have overwhelming influence on past players, fellow coaches, friends and community.

I begin my year as your president humbled by the opportunity to serve you, excited about the things we can accomplish. Please continue to do the great job that you are presently doing. Please be ready to do your part, if and when I call on you. Committee assignments, though largely unchanged, will be finalized after final Board of Director vacancies are filled at our fall Executive Committee meeting.  I know our new Executive Director, Jerome Garry will hit  the ground running and we hope that he and I together, with help and direction from all of you,  can maintain the professionalism apparent while Gary Makowicki and Gelaine Orvik were serving as our Executive Director. A special thanks to Gelaine for the support he has given me. Stay current, keep me posted, and have a great 2008-2009 year.

Harold Shepherd
2008-09 NHSACA President