Last Wednesday, two of the voices of Drumright Tornado Football, Tony Harper and Loren Barnett, interviewed head football coach Mark Ryan.
Harper asked Ryan about what to expect and asked about his previous coaching stops. He was at Choctaw, US Grant, Western Heights, and several other Oklahoma City Schools.
He said “ My dad coached at Mustang for 30 years.”
The coach knows a lot of terminology.
He talked about his offensive strategy, he feels that he can use several formations on offense and defense during the games. He says he will keep it simple though.
This is his first year here and probably a lot of these players have never played 11 man football (we’ve been in 8 man for six years so some might have).
Ryan has been coaching for 35 years. He is going to have 13 seniors on his team this year (a big number). He says they have good football IQ.
He loves coaching football and teaching. He talked about his assistant coaches, about their roles.
He talked about Hunter Kirby who will coach defense, Moses Williams in his fourth year coaching here will coach the offense. Other coaches will be James Osterhout and Kevin Gooch.
As important as the wins and losses are, he wants his players to be good people.
He would like to see the community support his team. He says community is very important.
“My players need to know how much the coaches and community care about them,” he said.
Harper asked Ryan about culture. Ryan said he needs to teach his players about working hard and toughness.
“We need good leadership,” he said.
Harper asked about the year that coach puts in, to which real said “We have a dead week during the summer,” Meaning the OSSAA says that is the only week that a coach and his team cannot have sporting activities.
Ryan also said that a lot of 6A teams don’t have the sports complex that Drumright has. He said he is proud to be part of the community.
He said “Football teaches players how to deal with adversity.”
He asked for people to pray for Max Gray who was in an accident last week. Right now it is too soon to know how Max’s progress will be.
The day before he talked to the voices of Drumright (Gene Carroll couldn’t make it though he wanted to be there), the community came together at the football field to pray for Max. Lake Barber was the speaker introducing the people who prayed. Barber prayed for him, so did Bryan Sapp from the First Baptist Church in Drumright, his brother Chris Sapp who is a youth minister in Perkins, Stacey Howard the River of Life youth pastor, and Jake Baugh who is a student at Drumright.
Moses Williams spoke to the student body, and there were a lot of them there.
Our only scrimmage will be at home August 20 against crooked Oak and Chandler.