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Source: The Frederick News-Post, Md.迷你倉新蒲崗Sept. 05--There are few moments that define a high school football season quite like the clock running out in the fourth quarter. That is when all teams are officially measured, for better or for worse.When the clock strikes triple zeroes on the scoreboard, the game, of course, has ended. A flood of contrasting emotions and body language washes over the field. The winning team has an obvious bounce in its step. Everyone is happy and positive. The losing team has an underlying current of sadness and anger. Sometimes it is visible on the surface.A lot of work went into what just happened, just about all of it unseen by the fans who filled up the stands. It seems like a logical time for reflection, a chance to take a deep breath or unclutter the brain. Except there is no time. Next week's opponent already beckons.The job demands of a football coach, even on the high school level, are seemingly unending. As soon as one games ends, the race to prepare for the next one begins. Taking deep breaths is code for falling behind. High school coaches aren't crashing on office couches like their fulltime brethren in the professional and college ranks. But their schedules are only one or two steps removed from that.During the season, high school coaches invest anywhere from 40-60 hours a week, working for pennies on the dollar, analyzing video, preparing gameplans, conducting practices and dealing with all of the various issues that crop up on rosters of 30 to 60 players. Sometimes there aren't enough hours in the day."It's a mad race to get things done and the clock is your enemy," said Middletown coach Kevin Lynott, who has led his team to a state championship in each of the last two seasons. "I feel like every second of the day counts."Lynott, like many of his colleagues, has a full-time job. And it's not coaching football. He does it because he loves the game and he loves working with kids, two very important prerequisites.The games, on the other hand, feel more like the refuge. They represent a chance to let loose and have fun after a long week of repetitive, tedious work."Friday is payday," Brunswick coach Patt Foster said. "What kind of work did you put in during the week to create the paycheck that you get?"The answer is typically what determines the outcome of games. There is a lot that happens before and after the ball is kicked off. But it's all highly orchestrated. Almost none of it happens by accident.A big commitmentLots of people want to be football coaches. Lots of them are qualified. But the brutal combination of heavy hours and little money weeds most of them out.It's not a job you take to get rich. Head coaches in Frederick County make anywhere from $2,500 to $4,200 per season and their assistants make even less. By comparison, minimum-wage workers see a far greater return on the hours they invest in their jobs and they usually have a fraction of the responsibility. Every other high school coach, regardless of the sport, can pretty much say the same.Good assistants are treasured commodities because, when one leaves, they are extremely difficult to replace."It's finding the mix of being qualified and having the time to do it," Lynott said. "That's where the teacher-coach has an easier road because of the teaching schedule ... If someone has a regular job that's 9 to 5 and they only get a week off in the summer, how do they come to weight lifting? How do they come to practices?"The summers are another story altogether. Coaches are basically donating their time as they monitor four-day-a-week strength and conditioning sessions and take their players to weekly seven-on-seven competitions."It's almost insane to be honest with you, an obsession," Linganore coach Rick Conner said. "It's almost past what it should be."So, given the time demands and paltry pay, why would anyone want the job?"It's a way to give something back to the community, a way to be involved," Walkersville coach Joe Polce said. "I don't do it for the money. I do it because I like being around my players and my assistants. I think football is a way to teach life lessons. There's a lot more to it than the football part of it, too. There's teamwork, brotherhood, camaraderie, discipline. That's all part of it."Revolutionizing the gameVery little of what football coaches do actually takes place within the confines of a game."I always say two percent of what we do is on the field," Lynott said.While most people think the end of a game is the end of a process, it is actually more like a beginning. There is an immediate rush to start breaking down film. It gives coaches a clearer picture of what they just witnessed and an early jump-start on next week, both in terms of what was working well and what needs to be corrected.By the time the kids show up for practice right after school Monday, several hours of the weekend were chewed up watching film and preparing scouting reports and game plans."I don't see an NFL game until Christmas time," Foster said.Everyone's approach is different. Lynott and his staff at Middletown will huddle inside the school after games to watch film, usually staying well past midnight. Other staffs, like the ones at Urbana and Walkersville, head over to a coach's house to do the same thing.Linganore coach Rick Conner is among those who fire up the game tape by himself late on Friday nights. His wife and son provide help, pointing out all the things that are easy to miss at first glance. But, by 1 a.m., they are sound asleep in the chairs next to him. In less than eight hours, the 51-year-old Conner will be back at school with his players and assistants to watch film, lift weights and run.Film study is the most time-consuming aspect of the job. But, recently, it has been made considerably faster and easier by an innovative, user-friendly website called Hudl."It's probably the most revolutionary thing I've seen since I started coaching and I have been doing this 21 years," Lynott said.Hudl was started by three self-described sports and tech nerds in Nebraska (John Wirtz, David Graff and Brian Kaiser) who felt they could make the lives of coaches, overrun by DVDs and paperwork, simpler."I don't have to fight to use the copy machines at school anymore," Foster said.So, in May of 2006, Hudl was born on the Internet. It's basically a one-stop shop that allows coaches to upload and watch video and disseminate information, including playbooks, game plans and weekly schedules, quickly and easily.Coaches no longer have to waste hours and hours charting each play of the game manually. Hudl does it for them. So, if Foster wants to know how many times his team ran the ball right in last week's game, he can type the request into the program and, within a matter of seconds, a list of all those plays are on his screen and ready to watch. The video can be dissected in any number of ways and everything is available instantly.As soon as a coach sees something on tape, he can send the clip, via email or text message, to a player or group of players and attach a note about what to look for on the screen. If Urbana's upcoming opponent defends the pass a certain way on third downs, coach Ryan Hines can email video examples of the formation to his quarterback and receivers, who can then p迷你倉出租ll it up on their personal computers, iPads or smartphones."Saturdays used to be 15- to 16-hour days," Hines said. "You'd have to go through each game film twice to make sure everything was marked down. Now, I'd say they are six- to seven-hour days. You have more time to do other stuff."As an added benefit, coaches can track how much film each player is watching through the program. It gives them an early idea of who is putting the work in before stepping on the practice field."Hudl is extremely easy to use," Oakdale coach Kurt Stein said. "I learned how to use it without any training. Anytime a problem or issue comes up, I can call or email someone at the site and they get right back to me and say 'Try this' or 'Try that.' They also have tutorials on the site you can watch for help."When coaches exchanged game film in the past, they did it at randomly selected halfway points, often a fast-food restaurant. It was a shady-looking set-up to say the least."We used to joke that people thought we were doing drug deals or something," Lynott said. "Because what you'd see is two men pulling up in a parking lot. They'd get side by side. They'd talk, they'd exchange packages and then they'd get back in their cars."Since most high school teams now use Hudl, including all 10 public schools in Frederick County, these meetings are largely unnecessary. Coaches can quickly and easily exchange film online. It saves significant time, miles and gas on the weekends."Three years ago, when we started (Hudl), it seemed like 10 percent of the schools were doing it," Lynott said. "I want to say it's 95 percent now."Near the end of the 2011 season, Foster ran out of DVDs. He'd use them to burn game copies and make highlight reels for his players to send off to colleges.Now, in a sign of the times, hundreds of blank DVDs now sit in a box, collecting dust, in his basement. He has no use for them anymore. If colleges want to see film on a Brunswick player, Foster can send it to them through Hudl. In fact, players now make their own highlight clips that recruiters can access on the website."It has taken hours and hours (of work) out of my day," Foster said. "It seems unlimited what you can do."It costs money to join Hudl. The most-basic subscription is $800 per season and it goes up incrementally from there. The top-of-the-line Platinum Package, which includes 24/7 support and even more video-storage space, runs $3,000 per year. Most coaches wouldn't think twice about paying for at least the minimum package. The teams foot the bill using funds that they've raised."It's worth its weight in gold," said Hines, whose first full season using Hudl was last season. "If I only had $800 to spend on a season, I'd use it on Hudl."The Technology WaveAs technology continues to overtake football on all levels, the structure of coaching staffs is changing as well.Mike Farin did not become an assistant at Middletown for his in-depth knowledge of X's and O's. Farin lives two doors down from Lynott and the two became fast friends. Their kids go to school together and get along well. More importantly, Farin used to do quality assurance testing for America Online, giving him a background in computers and technology Lynott wanted to tap into. So he was brought on staff as an unpaid assistant in 2008."We call him our IT coach," Lynott said.The job was a good fit for both. Farin wanted to learn more about being a football coach and some of the nuances of the game. Lynott wanted someone that could bring him and his staff into the digital age.Farin quickly revamped Middletown football's official website, which he still runs today, updating stats, schedules and all the pertinent information about the team on a weekly basis. He also took charge of all the video the team uses to evaluate and prepare for games.Every week, Middletown sends people with cameras to as many as four or five games across the state. They are charged with getting game film of future opponents on the Knights' schedule."I want a minimum of three game films of every opponent we play," Lynott said. "We want to get a visceral feel for the type of team we are going against. We want to see how they react to certain situations."Farin is ultimately responsible for each one of those game films. He makes sure they are ready to go when a coach wants to watch them on Hudl. He also records every Middletown game and uploads it on the site as quickly as possible.When the Knights play on the road, Farin is uploading video on his laptop during the ride home. He sets everything up for the coaches so all they have to do is press play when they want to watch tape after the games."Mike is a guy you treat like gold because he works his (butt) off," Lynott said. "He makes our life so easy. All we have to do is focus on coaching. He is the guy during the week that is making everything less stressful."More often, teams are looking to add tech-savvy guys like Farin to their staffs. They seem to make everything flow more seamlessly. Coaches, instead of fighting to bring something up on the computer, can now rely on this expertise. In their never-ending quest to find an advantage, they have more time.S.T. Royer is the head coach of the ninth-grade team at Catoctin. He also runs his own IT consulting firm and is helpful in keeping varsity coach Doug Williams and his staff up to date with the latest technology, such as Hudl."I love working with the kids," Royer said. "I went to Catoctin. I played football for Catoctin. So, getting a chance to coach there makes it all the sweeter."In the past year, the National Federation of State High School Associations has expanded the use of communication devices during football games, which will allow coaches to incorporate iPads and smartphones into the game experience. With the right setup, a coach can take a picture with a device of their choosing and send it to be printed on the sideline. It's no longer difficult to imagine high school quarterbacks poring over real-time images on the sideline, much like Peyton Manning and Tom Brady do on Sundays."It's kind of scary to think about," Foster said. "I'm not 25 anymore. I didn't grow up in this technology age. I am part of the generation that is kind of getting pushed out by it. That said, I am excited to learn it and see where it is going."Always on the clockThere is no off switch for a football mind."When you aren't (coaching), you are doing it," Conner said. "This formation is causing me a problem. What can we do about it? It goes on all day."Foster has a son who play sports. Programs like Hudl have made it much easier for him to carve out a few hours to catch one of his games. But during breaks in the action, he envisions himself pulling out his iPad, firing up Hudl and watching film. It's impossible to be over prepared.More so than ever, the moments are fleeting. The wins and the losses pass by so quickly that it's almost impossible to truly appreciate them in real time.The clock runs out in the fourth quarter but time is not really up. There is always another game to prepare for. That's why these coaches love their jobs.Copyright: ___ (c)2013 The Frederick News-Post (Frederick, Md.) 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