[JULY 17, 2000]  A new football coach has hit town. Ron Tomczak faces many challenges coming into his first season with the Lincoln Railers. With this in mind Coach Tomczak has come here with a plan...with a strategy to turn things around. Part 6 today is the conclusion of a series of questions and answers from an interview conducted by LDN Sports Talk writer Jeff Mayfield with Coach Tomczak. Get the inside scoop on how Coach Tomczak sizes up our team in the CS8, his strategy, philosophy and training plans to manage our team.

["I like to see two- and three-sport athletes and I think it carries over from one sport to the next"   –  Coach Tomczak]

A: You’ve got to make sure that they’re doing the little things well. In my 100-play playbook, I want them to master pages one through 10 before we ever get to page 11. Maybe in the past the kids have jumped from page two to page 12...but how many kids were lost along the way. Sometimes I’ll be taking things kind of slow and the older kids may get antsy, but, I want them to master the basics.

I want some quotes and mottos posted in the weight room. I want the pride to be built from the ground up. Accountability in the weight room will determine our success. I’ve set a 70 percent attendance minimum on our off-season conditioning, although 90 percent is what most programs are shooting for. I’m not going to make it too sophisticated for the kids. I like the K.I.S.S. (Keep it simple, stupid) method. I think the kids will grasp the basics better than if I tried to run a real sophisticated system. Granted, in the long run you do have to get sophisticated in your offense and in your defense sometime, but for right now it’s going to have to be baby steps. If I had to look at a dream down the road, it would be to win a state title. That has to be your goal if you’re a football coach. If you go undefeated you’re getting over to Bloomington or over to Champaign. I’d like to build a powerhouse here in Lincoln. I know that it will take a lot of hard work.

(To top of second column)

I’d also like to study what some of the successful programs did to get to that level, like Chatham for example. The feeder programs will be the key. I’d like to sit down with the youth coaches and see what they’ve got going on. I’d like to find out what offenses and defenses they are running. I’d like to ask them to start running our offenses and defenses. When Chatham won the state title, it was said that they run the same stuff from sixth grade on. They mastered it and went 14-0. That’s probably a good indication of what you should do with your young program. There’s got to be continuity...they have to feel a part of the program and vice versa.

I also want to get the alumni involved. I’d like to mention them in a program or something, especially the kids that went on to play college football somewhere. History brings tradition and pride back.

A: Just to keep their support would be the main thing. The parents may even need to let the kids know that they can focus not on just one sport but on many sports. It’s a touchy issue and I don’t want to rub anybody the wrong way, but I just don’t like to see kids putting all their eggs in one basket. I like to see two- and three-sport athletes, and I think it carries over from one sport to the next. Your success on the football field can carry over to the basketball court. I know a lot of this stuff goes in cycles, but the unity developed in one sport can carry over to another sport. I would just like to see more three-sport athletes in the program. I don’t know what the community can do about that, but some of that influence coming from the parents and their peers might be a start.

One of my strong suits is in the strength and conditioning area. I’ve told Coach Alexander and Coach Hobbs that if they need any help in that area, that I am available.

Coach Tomczak, on behalf of the LDN and the community I wish you all the success in the world.

[Jeff Mayfield]

[JULY 15, 2000]  A new football coach has hit town. Ron Tomczak faces many challenges coming into his first season with the Lincoln Railers. With this in mind Coach Tomczak has come here with a plan...with a strategy to turn things around. Through July 17, you can read a series of questions and answers from an interview conducted by LDN Sports Talk writer Jeff Mayfield with Coach Tomczak. Get the inside scoop on how Coach Tomczak sizes up our team in the CS8, his strategy, philosophy and training plans to manage our team.

["I want the players to step out on a limb and become leaders."  –  Coach Tomczak]

A: We’re in a grace period. I’m figuring out who they are and what they’re doing. I have seven assistant coaches, and six of the seven were here last year. The newest one is Kurt Roberts, who is the girls soccer coach. I’ve had good feedback from them, and most of them have taken the bull by the horns already, especially some of the older or more experienced ones. I’m sure it’s still a feeling-out process for them with me.

Maybe I need to delegate more and say to one: Take the defensive backs over there and do this with them. Some coaches, like Coach Spears, may already have 12 drills in his head to use during the allotted time. Other coaches I may sit down with and say: This is what to...here are four drills that will take five minutes each; keep ’em moving and keep the practice flowing.

I don’t know where I’m going to put everyone at level-wise. You have to have a taskmaster at each level – someone that is willing to crack the whip and make sure that [players are] working and improving. He’s going to have to be organized, and the kids are going to have to respect him. Other assistant coaches include Joe Ryan, Brad Gardner, Chris Hammer, Mike Spears, Joe Vasquez and Steve Parrot. These are the kinds of guys you need. It’s hard for one guy to handle 40 kids. If you’ve got one guy giving directions and another guy making sure that we’re lined up right, that’s what I’m looking for. I’m hoping to decide where I’m going to put these coaches by the end of the month, and they know that I want them to be able to work together.

So far, it looks like we should be able to work together well. I told them that they are free to come to me at any time to give me input on what I should do. I told them to feel free to call me. I had a meeting with them on Wednesday and asked them to air out any concerns, even though it’s hard to air things out in a group setting. I told them that they could write out any complaints and stick it in my mailbox, and that they didn’t even have to sign it if they didn’t want to. I don’t want things going on behind closed doors or behind people’s backs; I want them taken care of. With a bigger staff there will be some minor disagreements, but I’m only as good as my coaching staff is. They’ve got to relay my message – whatever I’m trying to get across to the players. All the coaches that helped out with the mini-camp did a nice job for us.

In addition to my staff that’s in place, I’d like to add some grad assistants from Illinois State and from Illinois Wesleyan. They're fresh out of the system, and many of them want to be coaches anyway. I’m still trying to see if I can swing something like this. Graduate assistants can bring in some fresh ideas. I think the kids also see them as only a few years older, and it gives them some hope and motivation on what they can become.

I want the players to step out on a limb and become leaders. If they see something wrong going on, I want them to take care of it. I want to build their respect and their pride for what they are doing. Everybody doesn’t have the same attitude as everyone else. If they see a guy or a group taking these principles wholeheartedly, then they respond to it.

(To top of second column in Part 5)

A: They held a special meeting to introduce me as the new coach. I told them that that was fantastic. There’s not many high schools around that have a separate booster club for a sport. They’re out there raising money for the football program. They will be monumental in terms of measuring our success. They get the kids T-shirts and other stuff.

One thing I’d like to see us do is to upgrade the weight room. That would benefit the whole student body here in Lincoln. When you put together a state-of-the-art weight room, it gives the kids more hope. It’s no longer a weight room but a fitness center. I hope the boosters will be in one accord with me if I think we should buy three new machines a year but allow the student body access as well.

I don’t want to neglect the hats and jackets and stuff, especially since the players like to wear those things. I think we will all work well together. We will host another spaghetti dinner and a host of other events and activities. They’ve already sold 500 Beanie Babies and ordered another thousand. Those things are selling like hot cakes.

There’s great support for all the programs here and I want continuity with them all. We’re all in this together. We want to become a powerhouse in the CS8. That only raises the standards academically as well. I guarantee you when the basketball team gets into the play-offs, I’ll bet this whole place goes up for grabs.

I’d like it to be the same way for football. I want our kids to be able to look back on it and say, "That was a good time!" 

Monday, the last of Coach Tomczak plans for this season’s Lincoln football will be revealed. If you have missed one of these insightful articles, be sure to catch Sports Talk on Monday next week. We’ll follow up the last article with all five other articles.

[JULY 14, 2000]  A new football coach has hit town. Ron Tomczak faces many challenges coming into his first season with the Lincoln Railers. With this in mind Coach Tomczak has come here with a plan...with a strategy to turn things around. Through July 17, you can read a series of questions and answers from an interview conducted by LDN Sports Talk writer Jeff Mayfield with Coach Tomczak. Get the inside scoop on how Coach Tomczak sizes up our team in the CS8, his strategy, philosophy and training plans to manage our team.

["In the sport of football, you have to have a sense of urgency. It has to be done now, because you never know when…" –  Coach Tomczak]

A: As far as position players, I’m more skilled in coaching receivers, running backs and quarterbacks, and defensive backs. Fortunately, my father was a football coach and I played a lot of different positions for him. I played quarterback, tight end, linebacker, defensive end, and in college I played defensive back.

One of my strengths is in coaching special teams. My coach at Western Illinois was Pete Rodriguez, who is now the special teams coach for the Seattle Seahawks in the NFL. I was on special teams from my sophomore through my senior year. I also was a pretty good punter.

If I had to characterize my coaching philosophy as a whole, I’d like to say that I’m a little bit more defensive oriented. I believe in defense...that offense sells tickets, but that defense wins games. My specialty is defense. I still have a lot to learn on offense. Hopefully, I will be learning the rest of my career...that’s what makes a great teacher and a great coach. I will be the one with the headset on, and I will be calling the plays. I won’t call all the plays solely, because I want input from all of my coaches. If they see something going on and say, coach, the slant’s there or the safety’s way over on the other side, I’m going to use their knowledge. We all know that two heads are better than one.

We’re not going to be primarily a running team, but we do have to establish the rush. That’s especially true in this conference. They may be a little stronger than us and a little quicker. They all will have established running games. The worst thing for an offense is to go three and out. It puts too much pressure on the defense. We need to have long, sustained drives. I want to have 10- to 15-play drives. The first time we get the ball, we have to establish ourselves. We need to drive it down the field and put some points up on the board. That’s a key to staying in a ball game and winning a ball game. That first series we want to come away with a field goal or better yet, a touchdown. Or at least take the ball deep in their territory and pin them back. Those are some key areas that are going to win football games.

(To top of second column in Part 4)

A: I believe in scripting the first 15 plays. We will have a script every time we go out. Not only does that say we know what we’re doing, it instills confidence in the kids that we are going to run 15 or 20 plays. I think 12 to 15 plays is what you want to script for a high school team. We did that in high school...where we scripted the first 15 plays, and it was very successful for us. We also ran the two-minute drill a lot. If you’re down 21-0 you might be in the two-minute drill for a quarter and a half. One thing these kids have to realize is that nowadays there is no longer a sense of urgency about anything. In the sport of football, you have to have a sense of urgency. It has to be done now because you never know when you’re going to be in that hurry-hurry situation.

I love to hear great coaches talk about these concepts. I’ve been listening to a tape called power talk, with Tony Robbins and Coach John Wooden talking. It’s an unbelievable tape. Some of the philosophies that Coach Wooden had can never be matched. He never spoke to his teams about winning the game; it was about the whole team concept and that you’re out here to improve yourself. Your goal is to play a better game than you did before and make all of your teammates better players. You need to listen to tapes and watch videos to improve your coaching...or maybe a youth football coach will have a good insight that needs to be implemented...they can come from anywhere.

The kids have to feel that there’s pressure on them in practice. We’re not just going through the motions. I want it to be fresh every day. They’re going to know that we’ve got team here, 7-on-7 there, special team breakdowns, our individual period and offense-defense, but they’ve got to know that we only have so much time. Once the season starts we only have four practices a week. That’s only 36 to 40 practices once the season gets here. That’s not a lot of time.

Monday may just be a scouting day, and the day before game is usually a light day as well. That means you only have 25 hard practices where the kids are going all out in scrimmages. You don’t always look forward to those long, hard, full-contact scrimmages, but you have to do it well to be successful.

Just like in basketball, I know Coach Alexander is going to run his 5-on-5 full court press for a half an hour. And his kids will be going all out the whole time. With my dad as my football coach, I look back and see it was his forte: putting the pressure on us during the week to get us fully prepared. That’s what I learned from him. He was one of the better coaches...I might be a little biased towards him. He was skilled at taking us from point A to point B. I went farther with him than any other coach.

Sports fans, make LDN your start page for the next two days to get all of the plans Coach Tomczak has in store for the Lincoln Railer football season. If you miss one, worry for naught; on Monday next week we’ll follow up the last article with all five other articles.

[Jeff Mayfield]

[JULY 13, 2000]  A new football coach has hit town. Ron Tomczak faces many challenges coming into his first season with the Lincoln Railers. With this in mind Coach Tomczak has come here with a plan...with a strategy to turn things around. From now through July 17, you can read a series of questions and answers from an interview conducted by LDN Sports Talk writer Jeff Mayfield with Coach Tomczak. Get the inside scoop on how Coach Tomczak sizes up our team in the CS8, his strategy, philosophy and training plans to manage our team.

["The team that controls the ball will control the game."
– Coach Tomczak]

A: I’ve got to evaluate my personnel and figure out if my kids are smaller, are they faster, or slower or what. Then I will devise an offense that will maximize their abilities. We might not be able to take a guy’s head off and push him back off the ball, but can we run an offense that has some good angle blocking where our kid might have the advantage blocking from the side instead of head-on. It’s going to be up to me to implement an offense and a defense to our best advantage.

I’ve got something in mind – without getting into the x’s and o’s here – that’s going to work to our advantage. It’s not always the biggest team that wins, it’s probably the team that makes the fewest mistakes. The team that controls the ball will control the game. I’m a firm believer in defense, and I want people to know that Lincoln is a defensive-oriented team.

That’s not to say that I’m going to slack on the offense. The offense has got to put points on the board in order to win, but defense really wins games in the long run. I’d like to have a platoon system where I’m playing 33 guys: 11 on offense, 11 on defense and 11 on special teams. Whether we can do that, is highly doubtful during the first two years. But down the road my goal is to have 50 kids on the varsity, with 30 to 40 of them participating and playing quite a bit.

The numbers have been up and down here over the years. I look up on the walls here, and one team here went 8-1 or 9-0 with only 25 guys. It doesn’t take 50 guys, it only takes 11 guys to be successful; but then again, I think the competition really comes in, out on the practice field. The more competitive you are on the practice field, the higher the stakes are going to be during the week, the easier that game is going to be on Friday or Saturday. Hopefully our practices will be a lot more intense and competitive.

(To top of second column in Part 3)

A: That all starts out with basic fundamentals. If they’re doing it right from the beginning, they’re only going to get better as time goes on. I need a quarterback that's going to be a great ball faker. He’s going to have a lot of steps to take, a lot of little moves before he hands off that ball. He has to be savvy and be the decoy-type guy in the long run.

Running backs have to be just as convincing. If they take a fake and dive over the middle, we hope that two guys tackle them and take themselves right out of the play, and then we’ve got another back with the ball running around the outside.

I haven’t seen all of our skilled position players on the field at one time, but watching them on film, I know we have a lot of them coming back. I’ve got to put them in the best possible position on the field. I’ve got to get the ball in my fastest players’ hands whether it be in the receiving corps or through the running backs. We had a sophomore who ran for 1300 yards last year and broke the school record. How many times is he going to touch the ball this year? I’ve just got to give them as many opportunities as I can.

As far as our run-pass percentages, I really don’t know what kind of balance we will have. We may need to start throwing the ball a little bit more. Your running game can set up your passing game, but then again in the year 2000 it’s vice versa now. Some teams throw the ball 70 times and only run it five. I do want to emphasize the idea with the kids that we do have to run the ball in order to maintain and stay in the ball game.

It’s going to be a new challenge for me. I know very little about the CS8. I basically followed it through the papers and I did see a couple of Lincoln games last year, but it will be new to me.

Sports fans, make LDN your start page for the next three days to get all of the plans Coach Tomczak has in store for the Lincoln Railer football season. If you miss one, worry for naught; on Monday next week we’ll follow up the last article with all five other articles.

[Jeff Mayfield]

[JULY 12, 2000]  A new football coach has hit town. Ron Tomczak faces many challenges coming into his first season with the Lincoln Railers. With this in mind Coach Tomczak has come here with a plan...with a strategy to turn things around. From July 11 through 17 you can read through a series of questions and answers from an interview conducted by LDN Sports Talk writer Jeff Mayfield with Coach Tomczak. Get the inside scoop on how Coach Tomczak sizes up our team in the CS8, his strategy, philosophy and training plans to manage our team.

[“My wife is from Lincoln and I know it’s a huge sports town.  It’s got a lot of pride and tradition.” – Coach Tomczak]

A: Well, I just built a house nearby, and I needed a job. You’re right...it will be a challenge. There also were not that many other coaching positions open in the area. I wasn’t as concerned with becoming a head coach or an assistant coach...my first concern was getting a teaching position because, as you know, that’s going to pay the salary there. Not that the coaching position was secondary, but if I would’ve been offered just the coaching job, I probably wouldn’t have taken it. Late in the school year they were sort of up in the air about what Mike Benton was going to do. In late April or early  May, he informed them that he was going to take another position, so it may be that they did not have a huge choice of candidates. But what compelled me to take it is that my wife [Betsy, daughter of the late Dr. Edward Ulrich] is from Lincoln and I know it’s a huge sports town. It’s got a lot of pride and tradition. I know that the football program can be as successful as several of the other sports programs are here...in time. It will take a lot of hard work.

 The kids will have to develop the confidence in what they’re doing. They will need to believe in themselves and the coach and that he’s going to be around here longevity-wise; and that there will be consistency year in and year out. The young kids need to see that. I want the junior high kids to know that Coach Tomczak is going to teach them a lot of stuff and create in them a willingness to do it – not a have-to. That’s when kids start progressing in the classroom or in a sport – when they have the will to do it. That’s what I want to try to instill in the kids.

(To top of second column in Part 2)

A: Well, I bring a different style of coaching. I think the enthusiasm really needs to be picked up around here. The kids need to learn that enthusiasm is contagious. It needs to start right out on the field. I’m going to start pushing the kids – not putting pressure on them, but making them step up. I’m going to challenge them and give them the expectations. I’m not sure that their expectations are high enough. They are going to have to be accountable for those expectations. You know that every coach sets goals. We’re going to try to look at our goals and measure ourselves every week, every two weeks and every month and see where we’re at. Have we attained these goals? The bottom line is, they’ve got to believe in themselves. I want it to be all one unit. I don’t want them working for me, I want them working for themselves. I want them to work to make their teammates better. Football is a game of emotion and momentum. If you can get the kids to get their emotion involved and learn how to turn that momentum around – whether it be in the summer conditioning program, whether it be in the middle of the season, whether it be a turnover – they’ve got to learn that things are going to happen. They will have to face adversity. This program has faced a lot of adversity in the last 15 years, but I want the kids to start believing in themselves. My forte right now is in the area of strength and conditioning. If I can get these kids in the weight room and start putting some weight on them...I mean people have told me that the Lincoln kids are a lot smaller than the other kids in the conference – maybe it’s due to the water, maybe it’s due to their weight program – but I want them to develop some consistency. Yes, we are taking baby steps right now...I told the freshman today, if you can’t do a pull-up, your goal when you’re a senior is to do 12 of them or more. Then you can tell the incoming freshmen where you started at. I want them to measure themselves. I want them to be adamant and consistent with things, and that will develop into progress.

Sports fans, make LDN your start page for the next four days to get all of the plans Coach Tomczak has in store for the Lincoln Railer football season. If you miss one, worry for naught; on Monday next week we’ll follow up the last article with all five other articles.

[Jeff Mayfield]

[JULY 11, 2000]  Whenever a coaching opening is announced, you can usually see the would-be coaches circling above that position for miles. A possible exception to that might be the Lincoln High School football job. As hard as the kids and coaching staffs have worked, mustering a little success has been hard to come by. Sometimes a step forward has been followed by two steps back. Personally, I admire all of these coaches and players that have persevered through thick and thin...mostly thin. I can relate to their pain. As a freshman, I quarterbacked my team to a perfect record...0-9! However, my junior year we advanced to the state championship game. It’s a long and tough road. Changing mind-sets and attitudes is one of the hardest things to do in sports. Playing a brutal schedule against teams with outstanding athletes will not make it any easier. Ron Tomczak knew all that when he accepted the job. He’s not coming in on a whim with blinders on. In fact, he saw two Railer games last season. He’s come here with a plan...with a strategy to turn things around. This week the LDN sports talk editor sat down with the new coach in his office to try to uncover the plan at hand...

[“I’m impressed with the kids and their work ethic right now and what I want to do is try to build off of it.” – Coach Tomczak]

A: Thank you.

A: Some of my first impressions...the kids are great. So far, they have been hard workers. Of course, with somebody new, everybody’s always easily good to them. I’m impressed with the kids and their work ethic right now and what I want to do is try to build off of it. So far, we really haven’t had any problems. There have been a few kids that haven’t been showing up...that I’m checking into to find out where they’re at. They are going to find out that this is what makes up the team...the off-season workouts.

A: Well, I was offered the position approximately a week after school got out. The first thing I tried to do was to have a team meeting for all freshmen through seniors interested in football. We had that meeting the following Monday and had about 95 kids there. That’s a good showing for a football program. Football is a game of numbers right out of the chute in order to be successful. I told them what we’re going to have strength and conditioning-wise for the summer. I told them that we would be lifting weights every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 7 to 8:45 a.m. and from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. I asked the kids to come to one of these sessions each day. If they have to work in the afternoon, then they’re supposed to be there in the morning and vice versa. So that’s how we started initially.

(To top of second column in Part 1)

Then I tried to put together a little mini-camp. My brother, former Bears QB Mike Tomczak, and current Lions (and former Railer) offensive lineman Tony Semple came in to help me with the camp on July 5 and 6. Putting together all this stuff on such short notice only gave me a week to publicize it, but it turned out pretty well. We had 50 high school kids in attendance and 35 fifth through eighth graders, with two of those coming down from Normal. The turnout was good from the Lincoln kids. Of course, every coach would like to have every single kid available there.

I’ve also made phone calls to about half of the males in the student body here trying to persuade them to come out for football. Along with that, I’ve just sent out a letter this week to all 500 males in the school here telling them what’s going on this summer...about our camp next week and also when our pre-season double sessions are going to start. So, that’s another little tool that I tried to incorporate to maybe reach those kids who may be on the fence and just need a push to come out. They might be a little leery of the contact or of the competitive aspect of the sport.

Sports fans, make LDN your start page for the next five days to get all of the plans Coach Tomczak has in store for the Lincoln Railer football season. If you miss one, worry for naught; on Monday next week we’ll follow up the last article with all five other articles.

[Jeff Mayfield]

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