Coaches who downsized had some learning to do
Football players at
Mount Dora Christian like to poke fun at their new coach, Mike Kintz, about his lack of familiarity with the teams the Bulldogs are playing this year.
Sometimes he mixes things up, confusing one opponent with another.
School names like Orangewood Christian, The Master’s Academy and Orlando Christian Prep were pretty much foreign to Kintz before he stepped down as athletic director for Seminole High of Sanford and became head coach for MDC.
“I do fumble the team names all the time,” Kintz said with a chuckle on Tuesday. “The kids laugh and get on to me about it. I just don’t know these teams yet. As a head coach, I went in blind on Friday night. I really didn’t know anything about Faith Christian.”
Blinders or not, Kintz coached his team to a 55-7 season-opening victory versus Faith last week.
Kintz spent 16 years working at public schools, including the past three as an A.D. He left that job to get back into football, this time in a new environment. Mount Dora Christian has an enrollment of about 175 students in grades 9-12. Contrast that with Seminole, which has more than 4,000 high schoolers.
Kintz isn’t alone on his introduction to a new learning curve.
Wes Allen, who compiled a 67-42 record in 10 seasons as a head coach for Oviedo and Hagerty, also left the public-school realm this year. He stepped down at Hagerty to become head coach at the third school that has an Oviedo address — The Master’s Academy.
“I enjoyed my time at Oviedo and Hagerty,” Allen said. “I love those kids. But it’s a different feel at Master’s. You feel it the second you step on campus.”
There’s no doubt a difference.
Foundation Academy head coach Brad Lord was an assistant for his high school alma mater, Marblehead of Massachusetts, and then for one year for Class 8A Olympia after he finished college at UCF while
in his early 40s. He then landed the head coaching slot at 2A Foundation and has compiled a 77-54 record over 13 seasons.
“If you really want to become a great coach, go to a small school,” Lord said. “Because you’ve got to get creative. If one of my guys goes down [with an injury], it’s like losing five. If it’s one of your studs that goes down it’s like losing 10.”
Kintz, Lord and Allen all said a big plus in a smaller setting is that their children can attend the K-12 school where they work.
Lord saw his two daughters graduate from the school on their way to college. Brady Lord, a sophomore football player, is the third of Brad’s children to attend Foundation.
Allen’s first-grade son and preschool daughter are on campus with him every day.
Kintz shares the MDC campus with his two boys and his wife, a new teacher at the school.
Mount Dora Christian (1-0) is home Friday night against Foundation (1-0), which has established itself as a consistent winner and state playoff participant under Lord.
Other coaches who went from public to private include Ben Bullock who coached at Ocoee prior to becoming head coach at Lake Highland Prep; and Bill Gierke, the area’s alltime wins leader (302-123-1). Gierke retired from the
Orange County Public Schools district after successful stints at Evans, Dr. Phillips and Edgewater and has coached Orangewood for 10 years.
Orangewood (0-1), which was thumped by Foundation last week, plays another private school power, Orlando Christian Prep (0-0), at home on Friday.
Master’s makes its season debut under Allen with a home game vs. Faith (0-1) on Friday.
TMA went 9-2 last year and is the reigning champion of the Sunshine State Athletic Conference. But the Eagles graduated 19 seniors and have just six this season on a roster that counts about 30 full-time varsity players.
“Well over half of our kids are two-way players,” Allen said. “I was used to having 60 freshman, 40 JV and 50 or 60 varsity kids. We had a 1A and 1B at a lot of positions. You could flip a coin on which kid should start.”
Class 5A Bishop Moore may be the only area private school that has the depth to come close to truly two-platooning with players focusing solely on either offense or defense.
The depth differential has altered Allen’s thoughts on going full-go in the days leading up to games.
“This has really been more of a learning experience for me in how to manage my practices when you have limited numbers,”
Allen said. “It’s important for us to get our players to Friday night healthy.”
Mount Dora Christian dresses about 35 players, a bigger lineup than many small schools field. But Kintz devised a different game plan for preseason practices than he had as head coach for Winter Springs (2007-08).
“We’re giving more water breaks. We shortened some of our practices,” Kintz said.
“And we didn’t do a lot of hitting. At these smaller schools we really do have to scale full contact down. You’ve got to be careful.”
A new Florida High School Athletic Association policy added some flexibility. It allows players to participate in six quarters per week. Prior to that change players were limited to one football game weekly.
Allen said Master’s will pull six or seven sub-varsity players up for varsity games via the six-quarter rule to give them more experience.
The Mount Dora Christian job opened when Kolby Tackett, who coached the Bulldogs to a 23-8 record over the past two seasons, departed to try his hand at a big school, Oviedo.
“The game hasn’t changed,” Tackett said. “But you go from 35 kids in your program to 135, it’s different. At Mount Dora Christian we were the offense coach, the defense coach and the special-teams guy.
At a school like Oviedo, with a bigger staff, you have coaches working with one side of the ball. I had forgotten what it’s like to have an offense and defense on the field at the same time.”
Tackett forgot that luxury. Kintz forgets the name of some of the schools his team will play this year.
The flip side for the small-school guys is that it’s at least easier to remember the names of every player.