Can't coach effort

As most of you know who read my blog, I am the defensive coordinator for ACA's football team. There are several things that coaches learn quickly (I learned many my first year at MA). A few of these things are:
1) Players win and lose games
2) You can improve a team, but you cannot make them want to win
3) Sometimes you can play the best possible, and the other team is just better
4) Sometimes you can play bad, and the other team is just worse
And I have now figured out...
YOU CAN'T COACH EFFORT

I have tried this all year. I have taken many different approaches as to how to motivate them, but some boys will play very hard and some will just play hard (if they don't at least play hard, they don't play for me).
This shows with my defense. I have about 7 guys that have bought into what we are trying to do and play with reckless abandon, and about 4 are still not too sure, or just do not understand what real effort is. That is why we can look great for several plays in a row, and then look like we don't have a clue what we are doing. The goal for next year...
Find 11 like Brent Teel.

Big players make big plays

Most of you that read this blog know that I coach football at ACA. We have a very special player on the team this year. His name is Brent Teel. Now, I have coached many good athletes in my career, but this one is different. He is by far the easiest to coach. He gives more effort than any I have coached so far.
This week we were losing a game to Catholic with under a minute left and had 4th and 25 at our own 15 yard line (ladies, that is not a good situation, it would be like shopping at Sears with $5 and needing to buy a formal dress). He caught a pass in the flats and broke (this is a literal number after watching the film) 8 tackles on his way to tying the score at 13 with 48 seconds left. Just to show he wasn't done, he scored the winning touchdown in overtime.
His stats for the game were 229 total yards, all three of our TD's, and 19 tackles. This earned him player of the week for Alabama by the Birmingham news (all classes) and player of week in Montgomery as well.
What makes him a good player is not all this. But the fact that he is the most polite young man you could know (if Avery was a few years older, I might even consider letting him date her).
Great to be around such good young men...