Following the spring game, Tony caught up with Richmond Foster HFC, Shaun McDowell.
Note that at times in this interview the wind was kicking up and messing around with my mic. I tried my best to capture the exact words but at times had to settle for the spirit of the comment when I couldn’t determine the exact words.
Tony: Just finished up your spring game, what did you see that you liked and what do you need to work on?
Coach McDowell: I thought we had some careless penalties. I thought we did well on offense, all facets of offense, run game and pass game. Defensively I thought if the quarterback would have been live, we would have got to him a bit. Overall – no injuries, kids got a lot of reps, and reps for young kids. I was very happy with what I saw.
Tony: This is the first year the UIL is going to allow 2 hours a week of sport specific training over the summer. How are you going to handle that and do you think it will help you carry over your progress to practice in August?
Coach McDowell: Yes and No. It’s to be determined. We are excited about it but we are also wary because we don’t know what that looks like. You talk about vacations and coaches being gone, kids being gone, what does that look like. We have a plan to go every Tuesday and Thursday for an hour after SAC Camp. I think it will help us down the road. We play a lot of 7 on 7, so we are always working during the month of June. It’s July that this will help and our O-line and D-line type kids. I think that it’s going to be beneficial, I just don’t know what that looks like. It can’t do anything but help us but again it’s a lot of work. We are taking some summer away from coaches and kids and not really compensating them. We haven’t really figured it out yet. It’s all for love, but sometimes love doesn’t pay the bills.
Tony: You are the state board of Texas 7 on 7. You are the incoming president of the Greater Houston Football Coaches Association (GHFCA). You just received a check one of fund raiser 7 on 7 tournaments for the GHFCA’s scholarship fund. Tell a little about your experiences with those organizations.
Coach McDowell: It’s been great. I’ve been blessed to be part of those two great organizations. I’ve been with the GHFCA since 2015. Now being the incoming President for 2019-2020, I’ll really excited about that. I’ve been on the (Texas 7 on 7) State Board since (too much wind to hear the year or the next sentence where Coach McDowell talked about the importance of 7 on 7 to keep pace with other schools). Being a part of the GHFCA, coaches helping kids, we handed out $22,000 in scholarships this last year. All the events we do with the Texans, with U of H and HBU. Excited to help our coaches help our kids.
Tony: One last topic. Talk a little bit about the Texas 7 on 7 decision to move toward requiring soft shell helmets in 7 on 7 competition.
Coach McDowell: Believe it our not, we have always talked about allowing helmets and it just became a no-brainer. The technology is there. It’s relatively cheap now. Teams can afford it. We decided to make it where it’s a recommendation for SQTs this year. You have to have insurance if you host a SQT. It will help with insurance since it is recommended that you have a soft-shell helmet. But it will be required starting with the State Tournament. We wanted to give teams some lead-time to purchase the helmets. We have made it required for 2020 SQTs. It’s just a no-brainer. Soccer’s been doing it forever. It was just time for us to do it. We want to keep our kids safe.
