New Merrimack Football Coach.

Need names for a chance to coach in at a school with more athletes then you can shake a stick at. Town with a great youth football feeder program.

I believe you are going to see quite a few great candidates.

These are a few that would be on my shortlist.

Phillips- give this guy a few athletes and points will follow.

Raycraft. Remember this was his dad's baby. He can't be happy with what the football program has become.

Houseman- local legend was coaching at Holy Cross last I heard. I know it's a step down,but taking a team from chumps to champs in a short time looks great on a resume.

TO- nope not gonna write it Eliot.

GNG wrote: Need names for a chance to coach in at a school with more athletes then you can shake a stick at. Town with a great youth football feeder program.

I believe you are going to see quite a few great candidates.

These are a few that would be on my shortlist.

Phillips- give this guy a few athletes and points will follow.

Raycraft. Remember this was his dad's baby. He can't be happy with what the football program has become.

Houseman- local legend was coaching at Holy Cross last I heard. I know it's a step down,but taking a team from chumps to champs in a short time looks great on a resume.

TO- nope not gonna write it Eliot.

Respectfully, I'd bet my entire life savings that none of these people even put in. I appreciate everyone's sentiments that Merrimack is a "sleeping giant," but CONSIDERABLE issues exist there, in my opinion, that go far deeper than simple coaching and front-line leadership. Anyone who knows anything about program building and culture would see that Merrimack will be a project that would take 4-5 years to become consistently competitive again under optimal conditions. And, most high-caliber guys know that you aren't going to get that long to become successful before rabid drooling parents and idiot administrators start pounding on you...so this will likely not be an attractive opportunity for anyone but out-of-staters or young guys with big egos who just want the HC nod.

Mark Phillips wouldn't get the nod, even if he put in (which he wont, because he'd want to associate himself with a sure winner). Merrimack already tried an abrasive, unlikable type, and he's leaving right now.

Bill Raycraft is the AD and Head Coach at Windham, and they are building a great program over there. I doubt he'd leave that.

Walt Housman is currently the Assistant HC and DC for the Chicago Rush Arena Football Team. I doubt he would leave a career job to come coach for $6K a year at his old HS in NH.

I respectively disagree with you Sofaking.

I believe a good coach came in to annual loser Spaulding and turned them into an instant winner in one short season.

It's football, not brain surgery.

Putting kid's in the right position is key. That is something the old coach never got.

I don't know the considerable issues you are writing about.

I do know Spaulding was HORRIBLE for years. They got a good coach and turned it around in one short season.

No reason that couldn't happen in Macktown.

GNG wrote: I respectively disagree with you Sofaking.

I believe a good coach came in to annual loser Spaulding and turned them into an instant winner in one short season.

It's football, not brain surgery.

Putting kid's in the right position is key. That is something the old coach never got.

I don't know the considerable issues you are writing about.

I do know Spaulding was HORRIBLE for years. They got a good coach and turned it around in one short season.

No reason that couldn't happen in Macktown.

And Spaulding was right back to having a losing season again this past year. That's not permanent, sustained change. This past year, Spaulding beat Merrimack (a team that couldn't beat 3 Division III teams and went oh-fer), West (who we all know was somewhat improved, but still very weak) and Somersworth, who sits a whole 3 divisions below Spaulding. So, they most certainly were not an "instant winner."

The "considerable issues" are cultural and deep. It's one thing to have a team that has no talent and/or is poorly coached. It's another thing to have a losing culture due to politics, administrative incompetence, and ingrained attitudes that have formed within parents and players. Merrimack's problems are, in my humble opinion, systematic.

And no, it may not be brain surgery to be a Head Football coach (although based on some of your posts, you certainly criticize HS coaches as harshly as though they got paid at that level), but it is MUCH more than just installing BG's offense and getting athletes out to play, particularly when you are trying to turn a culture around. Great athletes, no matter how great they are, need to be in a healthy environment to be successful. They can't succeed when their pop warner coaches are telling them the HS coaches are idiots. They can't succeed with parents and grandparents in the stands criticizing everything. They can't succeed with people in the school believing they can't win and being unsupportive. So, it's a much more strategic undertaking than just "putting athletes in the right positions" and calling great plays. That's ESPN / NFL Network rhetoric, not something that would be said by someone who actually knows football at the HS level beyond being a loving parent.

You have some very strong opinions about things. I'm not trying to be controversial or argumentative...but I wonder what makes you think that you are more qualified to "know" what it takes to turn a football program around than people who have actually coached football for many years and have devoted considerable time and energy in their lives to the activity at the HS level. Sitting in the stands, watching a lot of football, DVR'ing Gruden's QB Camp, and "talking to some guys who coached football once" doesn't really cut it...no matter how smart you've convinced yourself you are.

Now, I'm no fan of the Joe Battista era at Merrimack. I coached against them one year (while I was still coaching myself) and found them to be less-than-ideal in terms of sportsmanship and class among other things...so I'm not coming to anyone's personal defense here. BUT, I wonder how you think Merrimack ever had a chance of being successful while people like you were busy badmouthing everything that coaching staff was trying to do at every available opportunity. You think kids don't hear / read stuff like that? You think it doesn't wear away their confidence and impact their overall team chemistry/belief in what they are doing? It's a selfish, slanderous thing to do to a program, and parents/stakeholders have no idea the ill-effect it has (or, maybe they do??) on the overall performance of a program. And in the end, the KIDS suffer as much (if not more than) your intended target.

So, yes sir...there are "deeper issues" when an entire community (players, parents, administrators, coaches, "fans," youth program, etc) needs to re-examine its thinking and attitudes toward winning football. It ain't just about getting a couple extra track athletes and hoops athletes out and installing BG's offense and "away we go...a new juggernaut has been born."

I wish it were that easy...but it's not. It takes an entire long-term strategy and approach to fix those kinds of issues, and long-term lasting results of any real value are not going to happen immediately.

Well said, Sofa.

It's the holiday season.
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We agree to disagree.

I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday.

I reread your comments and need to respond. Yesterday I was out watching the PATS.

You say you don't want to be controversial or argumentative, but then you go on to RIP Marc Phillips in another thread.. Are you just a tad jealous or envious of his enormous success at the high school level? I hear plenty of bad things about successful coaches. I seem to remember you ripping the Souhegan coach two seasons ago. I guess it's ok for you to rip a coach,because you coached hs football.

You seem to know intimately the goings on at the school? Or are you just making these observations from your previous issues at your last coaching stop?

High school football in NH in my opinion is all about having athletes and putting them in the right positions. Usually the team with the best athletes wins. Now I never coached hs football like you, but I have been to enough games in my 52 years to come to this conclusion. BG never had a feeder program, just lots and lots of athletes. They seemed to have done allright.

I do know this. In NH many football coaches suscribe to the KISS theory. Keep it simple stupid. That means putting your best athletes in positions to succeed. I never coached hs football like you sofaking, but I am smart enough to know that Distacio should have been starting qb his sophmore year. He never played qb at Merrimack, although now he is at TCU running the scout team as qb.

This guy always made moves like that. People in town knew it, people in the school knew it. People in pop warner knew it. He is gone now. I think you underestimate how hungry this town is for a winner. People will be very supportive of the new coach, if for nothing else because he is not the old coach.

We will see who is right next season SK. I say instant turnaround with a high profile coach.

You say young coach {because you don't think any coach worth his salt will apply}, and he will face a long road with many obstacles.

Stay tuned...

I look forward to my aforementioned suspension and having this post deleted almost immediately.

We'll put an end to this right away. Please stop being angry/aggressive towards other posters.

Let me start off by saying that when my son played for Phillips, I thought he was a very good coach. Little eccentric with the F-bombs sometimes, but not anything you wouldn't expect from a football coach. That being said, SofaKing made a point in his last post. Certainly there is a very pro-BG base on here, or more accurately, pro-Tony Johnson and pro-Mark Phillips. When comments are made against these two they're almost always instantly changed or hidden by moderators. When non-BG posters criticize them, they get called out by other members of the forum and the moderators don't always step in to edit those posts. I think if the moderators want this forum to be taken seriously, they need to be a bit more objective in what they do and don't edit. I personally like coming on here and reading about football, occasionally posting, but I do find it to be a double standard that certain posters can rip on parents and their kids and coaches and nothing is said, but when other posters do the same it's taboo. I don't resent any of the posters on here, they're all entitled to an opinion, but I personally would like to see less picking and choosing going on from here.

Furthermore, I think SK has a really good point about Merrimack/Spaulding/long term success. Turning a team around is a long term deal. It will certainly help Merrimack and will go quicker with a very good head coach and a good feeder program, but if it was as simple as putting guys in the right positions and just calling plays we wouldn't have such a big difference between the very good head coaches and the not so good head coaches.

We don't hide any comments about BG/Tojo etc. -unless- they are attacking in nature. In fact I've come out saying we talk about it way too much to begin with...we're not all BG all the time here.

The reason SofaKing was disciplined is because his posts became personal towards another contributor. Not because of his viewpoints. Everybody is entitled to an opinion provided its not inflammatory or attacking on a contributor, player, coach, school etc.

He crossed the line.

I'm not worried about "being taken seriously". The forum speaks for itself. There will always, and I mean always, be people who think that the forum should be moderated in a different way. To those, I say go start your own. I have always encouraged "haters" to do that. So far haven' t seen one pop up. Between T&F, Tully, myself and the other Mods we take time out of our day to read every single word to try to keep this a clean environment and not one where you can online bully another. If a poster chooses to make their point by attacking another contributor well they should have re-thought their comments and wording they used to make said point.

Think before you post. Post like you're talking to someone, not like your behind a computer. We won't stand for it here. There's a little haven called the VoyForums where you can say anything you want.