What has been the key to this season's success?

The biggest key is we don’t have any selfish players at all this year. Everybody’s working as a team. The chemistry’s really good and on any given night, anyone could be the star of the game. It’s been a lot of different people. The scoring’s spread out – receptions, the running. We’ve remained focused on what we're trying to accomplish, what we need to do each week and we’re not looking ahead which sometimes is really hard. We don’t look at comparable scores like a lot of teams would and just assume things are going to happen. They really have come out to play each game.

What are the pros and cons of being undefeated going into the final regular-season games against your strongest two opponents?

The main thing is everybody is ready to knock you off. Like the Orioles at the end of the season beating Boston, they’d like to be the spoiler if they’re not in playoff contention. The fact is it does go along with our philosophy that each week (the schedule) gets a little bit tougher and it’s good to build into that. It’s a good thing. We want to be in those kinds of games. It prepares you for the playoffs if you’re heading in that direction.

What has turned the Fallston program into a playoff contender for the past four years after not making the playoffs at all until 2008 -- or were you a contender and just didn't make it?

We were a contender and didn’t make it for some years. In 1999, 2000, 2001, we were 9-1, 8-2 and 7-3 and the system didn’t allow us to get in. In 2008, we got in and we were 7-3. They expanded the playoffs a little bit to help out that cause, but still, with points and bonus points with your opponent, if we lose the last two games, we might be in danger of not getting in, which is remarkable. We had three teams last week that were undefeated in our region. Now there’s only two left and they all kind of play each other, so that might work its way out. For our program recently, we’ve focused more on weight training, we’ve had a better turnout at weight training during the winter months. We do a lot of agility drills indoors which is something we didn’t do before. We work a lot of footwork which is what you see now at these pro combines and there's kind of a push in that direction. That’s what’s making a lot of our kids improve. And I think when you win, you thrive. More kids come out. They get interested and it just builds on itself a little bit.

Watching your dad coach, did you always want to be a football coach?

Always. In the fourth grade, I was following those teams around as the manager. I used to ride the bus with the team and I just liked what I saw, how the kids respected him and how they worked hard every day. It was just something I wanted to do. Right away, I picked one college to go to. I wanted to go to a teaching college which is what Western Maryland was pretty much known for and I wanted to play so I could continue with that knowledge you get with playing. When I got hired in 1975, principal Walt Potter at Aberdeen said, “Well, I have good news. I’m going to hire you and I need a volleyball coach this year. I want my volleyball program to thrive.” I said, “I’ve never played volleyball, but I’m willing to learn. I’m a coach, I can teach.” Fortunately, I had a lot of good athletes back then. A lot of basketball players played and we had a good team. The only team we couldn’t beat was Bel Air. At the end of volleyball practice, I would go out and help out with football, help scouting and on game days. I didn’t interfere with it, but I didn’t want to get away from football. The next year, I became a football assistant under George Connelly.

What do you remember about your dad’s style of coaching and how did he influence your coaching style?

His style was you’re going to do it right. He’d make you repeat the play over and over and over until it was perfect. That was his style of coaching. He was a very disciplined coach and he wanted it just perfect every time. Repetition and the fact that he really knew technique. Back then, he brought new techniques in with linemen in a four-point stance, their nose down and getting off the ball real low. That’s kind of changed a little bit as strength has changed in the game. You see a lot more three-point stances now and that’s just because they’re bigger and stronger. But back then, he was real disciplined that way and a lot of people had never seen that before. Dad had experience at City College and he did play at Maryland one year under Bear Bryant. A lot of people don’t know Bear Bryant was at Maryland for one year. I think for the first 15 or 20 years as a coach, I probably ran everything that he did, offense and defense. Then football started to change a little bit. It started to become a wide open game. My offensive coordinator and my defensive coordinator, they both played for me and both played in college, and they brought back a lot of good ideas, so we kind of opened up our offense I want to say six years ago to not really a West Coast but sometimes four wide receivers. You would never see that before. Back in the early 80s and 90s, we never did anything like that. I think as the passing game has come about in college and in the pros, a lot more kids are throwing the ball than they used to. That’s the key. If you don’t have a quarterback who can throw, you can’t run those kind of offenses. We have spread it out more and the theory is to get the ball in different people’s hands, very athletic people who can do something with it once they catch it. We’ve been very fortunate over the years to have more speed and have more kids who can do that.

(Photo of Cesky by Russell Tracy/For The Aegis)