A Friday In The Life Of A H.S. Football Coach

From the Seattle Times

BELLEVUE — It’s early. It’s cold. It’s dark. P It is the kind of morning where hitting the snooze button sounds much more inviting than what awaits outside.

But Jason Rimkus, 28, is ready. For Interlake’s first-year football coach, there is no time to waste. It is 6:45 a.m. and he walks out the front door of his apartment wearing a blue Saints polo shirt and khakis.

He climbs into his red truck holding a sandwich and drives off to begin a day that won’t end until after 10:30 p.m.

On Fridays in the fall, high-school football coaches anxiously await kickoff. But there is plenty to take care of before the team ever steps on the field.

In this season of transition at Interlake there has been plenty of adversity, so there is always work to be completed. Rimkus has dealt with injuries and ineligibility. It took time to get players to buy into a system that was drastically different from the one utilized by former coach Sheldon Cross.

However, on the Friday morning of Oct. 15, Rimkus believes his program is turning a corner. The Saints are coming off a homecoming win over Sammamish, their first of the season, and a win against Lake Washington would book a trip to the 2A playoffs.

So, as he pulls into The Little Store to grab a Frappuccino, there’s plenty to be positive about. But as he arrives at school, it’s too early to start thinking about the game plan. Before he gets to that, there is the worry that a player might forget his jersey or show up sick.

“Stuff they don’t tell you about when you sign up for this,” he says with a laugh.

When Rimkus pulls into the parking lot at 7 a.m. he heads to the coaches’ office to pick up a black Interlake jacket.

“Coach, you ready?” a student asks as he walks past the office door.

Rimkus, who was a team captain at Bothell during Tom Bainter’s first season in 2000 and coached with the Cougars last year, then heads out to his morning post in front of the school. He sets up three cones that span a crosswalk to keep parents from using a bus lane as a shortcut.

He greets students as they walk by and checks to make sure football players are dressed appropriately. He asks them to wear Interlake polo shirts and khakis on Fridays.

Once the school day starts, it doesn’t take long for Rimkus to get his first piece of bad news. While checking his phone, he notices one of his players has sent him a note that he won’t be able to play.

He shrugs it off and heads back to the coaches’ office to tape up after-school, game-day schedules. On the way past the gym, he points to a high-school picture of Jim Mora and says he recently sat down with the former Seahawks coach to get a few coaching tips.

After the first period of the day, he heads to an English class to assist students who are reading “To Kill a Mockingbird.” The rest of the school day, he spends time in several classes, helping students with everything from “The Catcher in the Rye” to geometry and health.

Throughout the day he gets texts, calls and e-mails from parents, coaches and athletes. During this part of his day, “a screen play on third down is insignificant.”

Around 1:40 p.m., Rimkus walks into the main office and lets out a sigh. He begins to put away the school day to focus on football. He plugs in an external hard drive that contains his “football life” and by 2 p.m. he starts to get anxious.

For the next hour he jots a few notes on a white board, talks to assistant coaches as they trickle in and gets an e-mail about a proposed trade in his fantasy football league.

At 3:30 p.m. one of his players sends a text to say he is sick and can’t play. When he shares the news with his assistants, the frustrated faces tell the whole story, but they decide to “close ranks and march on.” After prodding from teammates, the player eventually arrives.

After a coaches meeting and individual position meetings, the coaches gather one final time before meeting the players, who are assembled in an upstairs gym.

Each coach then talks to the players and, when it is Rimkus’ turn, he poses a question.

“What kind of man are you now? What kind of man do you want to become?”

He likes to come up with motivational themes. This week he uses the movie “Tombstone.”

“You fight one, you fight us all. Got me?” Rimkus shouts.

A few minutes after 5 p.m., the team heads toward the buses.

It takes a few minutes, but eventually there is silence during the drive. A smell of sour sweat wafts through the air, courtesy of pads that have been fermenting all season.

The team arrives at Lake Washington High School in Kirkland about an hour before kickoff. After warm-ups and a quick stop in the locker room, Rimkus leads the captains out to the field, huddling with them as soon as they step on the turf.

The game starts well for the Saints as Scotty Gehlhausen returns the opening kickoff for a touchdown.

On the sideline, Rimkus paces as his team falls behind 14-7 in the first quarter.

At halftime, the Saints trail 20-7 and Rimkus huddles with his coaches outside the locker room. The team is young and Rimkus tells his assistants the coaching staff needs to lead.

“We’ve just got to coach these kids up, get them going,” he says.

The second half doesn’t go any better than the first. Lake Washington wins, 34-13. When Rimkus gathers his players, he points to the Kangaroos’ celebration. He wants them to remember what they’re seeing and think about how it feels.

This season is as much about growth as it is wins and losses. The players are growing. The coach is growing. The program is growing. Even after this loss, the playoffs are a possibility. There is more to play for.

So, before the team trudges off the field, they gather in a circle and shout, “One, two, three, family!”

It’s late. It’s cold. It’s dark.

It is time to move on, already time to think about next week.