Exclusive Interview with Coach Cowart

Exclusive+Interview++with+Coach+Cowart

Ian Frost, Senior Editor/Sports

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  1. What are you looking forward to this season?

I would like to see how our individual players attempt to reach their full potential and then collectively how we as a unit can come together and identify as a team and obtain our goals, which is a state championship.

  1. How do you plan on building on last year’s WPIAL Runner Up title?

We can use it as motivation from the defeat in the championship round and to tell our kids that we are good enough of a program and a team to be able to compete at the highest level.

  1. Even though you are their coach first, do you find a certain friendship form with your players?

Oh, no question. We’re in it together, we talk about it all the time as a team, you know, the struggles that we go through we’ll go through together. The player struggles are different than the coach’s struggles but we try to enjoy and celebrate things together and fight the good fight every day. I really enjoy this unit in particular. Every team has its own personality, I like the personality of this team. Engaging and building a relationship with the players is the reason I do it and most coaches are the same way.

  1. When coaching, what do you find is the hardest or most time consuming thing for you?

I guess the hardest thing probably is the time away from your family. We ask a lot of our young people to be away from their families and to put hours in to get better at a particular task. Those hours are multiplied as a coach when I’m trying to get kids to do the right thing. So the hardest part is just the time that it takes, but it’s also the most rewarding thing when the time is spent in a positive manor.

  1. Have you always wanted to be a coach or was being a coach something that just came into your life?

I don’t know if I would have said it was a goal of mine, but I think it’s a unique scenario that I played here and I used to tell people when I got the job that I can remember running out of the tunnel as a player, coming out of the tunnel and into Taggart Stadium, which was such a fun experience as a player and as an assistant coach and then leading the guys out of the tunnel as a head coach was one of the most special things I think of. I just think running and playing at Taggart Stadium was such a unique experience and the fact that I’ve been able to do that a couple different ways has been really really fun.

  1. In all your years of coaching, what do you consider to be the biggest achievement your team has earned?

I think that if you can look at, as a coach, all the small achievements. For instance this year we have Josh Thomason, a guy that was maybe a fourth team running back coming into the season that has tore off four one hundred yard games in a row. So those small moments where kids are getting the message and they have their opportunity. I remember when I played we had a kid that was a senior special team man that (when we played in high school, my WPIAL Championship team) blocked a punt in the championship. He was a senior special team man, always wanted to be a bigger part of the team but his role was to be a special team player who picks a blocked punt up and scores a touch-down at the WPIAL Championship. Those small moments where kids that just keep grinding and doing the right things over and over again, those are the things that I look forward to. If I had to hang my hat on all my wins, all my loses, or what kid goes to college and what kid doesn’t then I’d wear myself out trying to think about those things. But I don’t really do it for that, I do it just to see if the young people I’m around are going to be impacted by the message we’re telling them as a staff, and are they gonna be better people when they leave the program.

  1. How do you motivate your players to try and work harder to make them a successful team?
  2. Do you ever get bored of coaching? Why or why not?

No, I don’t and I think that if boredom is a part of what you’re doing then you’re in the wrong thing. If I ever did get bored, then I would find something else to do. I love teaching and I love coaching and I think they’re really similar in some of the dynamics that are expressed in both of those things. But I have a passion for young people, certainly young people in our community, and I really like the game of football, so it’s fun to me. It’s two of the things I love the most; being around younger people and being around the game of football. I’m lucky to do what I do. So no, I do not get bored of it.

  1. Do you see another trip to Heinz field or maybe even Hersey coming up this season?

I think that those capabilities are within this group, I have no doubt. I think that this team can be every bit as good, if not better, than the team we had a year ago that went to a championship game. But we certainly are going to have some mountains to climb on the way and nothing is guaranteed.

  1. What do you think is this years teams hardest challenge?

Like a lot of teams that I’ve been around, it’s just a matter of getting this particular unit to believe in and understand the job and the task at hand. Those are small things. How can they do the little things right all the time? So we as a staff are trying to just get our guys to believe that we can do our job and trust the process that we talk about with our kids all the time. It’s understand your job and do your job. I think this team has the big parts that are sometimes hard to find. We have the ability to really stop people on defense, score a lot on offense, but we’ll only do that if we’re really good at the minor parts of football. So I think the little things for us right now, with this unit are the hardest. But if we can continue to sharpen up those little things, I think this unit can be really really good.