Story Written by: Damon Cook @ CHSAANow.com
AURORA, Colo. — The Classical Academy flag football team, led by coach Frank Haist, is off to a perfect 4-0 start in the program's inaugural season.
With aspirations to be the best, the Titans have come out strong, outscoring their opponents convincingly, 112-19. The route of their opponents over the first four weeks helped Haist win Denver Broncos Flag Football Coach of the Week honors for Week 3.
How did you get started coaching flag football?
I read an article, I think it was an NFHS article in probably early-to-mid April. And, to be honest with you, at that time, I had no idea that Colorado was considering flag football. I just read the article, and I emailed my AD, and I said, 'you know what, this sounds like this is an up-and-coming thing, just going to give you a heads up, I'd love for you to consider me if something comes up. And he said, 'well, give me a plan. So I laid out a plan of introducing it to The Classical Academy and then we found out a few weeks later that CHSAA approved it, and the rest is history. We did a sign up and had significant interest, 70-something girls were interested. At the beginning of the summer, we did summer volunteer clinics and then had tryouts, and had 54 girls try out. So anyway, that's how it got started.
What is your coaching experience?
I've been coaching basketball, I'm in my 29th year of coaching basketball. I started off coaching boys basketball and the Lord blessed me with three daughters and then my son. So as my daughters were growing up, I started focusing more on girls basketball, and so, I'm the girls basketball coach at TCA. I am in my ninth-year coaching TCA girls basketball. Okay, so I've been coaching for a while. Coached a few years of football. In fact, way back in private school in Texas, I coached a year of flag football for boys. So, I had a little bit of football background. Football was my main sport growing up. So it's a comfortable sport for me.
Have you learned anything new in your first-year coaching flag football?
I think it's probably been the creation. I did some offensive play calling in junior high and I really tried to implement what the high school coaches did. But here, when you create the wheel, it's like I told my wife, 'be patient with me, because I'm creating the wheel here as I developed this program.' But when you create the wheel from scratch, as far as what is going to be your offensive scheme, what's going to be your defensive scheme, I think the newest part for me was to create an offensive scheme, a play calling system that I thought would not be overwhelming for the girls. I knew I didn't want to be a wristband coach, I didn't want to have plays on the wristband. I wanted it to be simple enough that the girls could memorize it. So I think that was probably the newest thing for me, is to create a system that's not overwhelming for the girls, but it's also not easy for the defense to read and understand as well. So I think that was probably the newest thing for me.
How have you seen flag football have a positive impact on your athletes?
Well, I remember the Gazette interviewed my four senior captains and they said, 'it's been fun, kind of playing with girls that you have not played before.' We've got basketball girls, we've got soccer girls, we've got track girls, I mean, just girls that never crossed paths in their sports that are now playing together. And they kind of made that observation, and I think it's neat for them to acknowledge that and to enjoy that interaction with a new group of girls because of a new sport, seeing them coming together.
What excites you about the rest of the season?
I've been a little reluctant to get in the spotlight. Everybody's kind of excited that we're 4-0, and I'm like, 'we haven't even got organized yet. We're still trying to figure out ourselves a little bit.' But I have a great group of girls and we have chosen to make fundamentals our priority. We've got a good blend of athleticism and coachability and all that, so I guess I'm looking forward to us to having all our schemes in and to be efficient at what we're doing.
We still have more to grow and get better. I guess I tell the girls that culture is huge, loving on each other and caring about each other, and our motto this year is love and preparation are our separation. So we want to love each other. That's what makes good culture, and we want to prepare and get better. So I'm excited that we have so much more to improve, and the girls are coachable, and they're willing to get better, and we want our expectation to be the best we can be. Our aspiration is to be the best. We hope to play Nov. 2. That's when the state championship is. It may be a bit unrealistic for a first-year team, when you got a couple teams that have been in the pilot program, but our expectation is to be the best we can be. Our aspiration is to be the best. I tell the girls that weekly, let's be the best we can be and see where that takes us. So I'm kind of excited to see what the best we can be, will be. We've got so much growing to do.
What do you think people should know about flag football?
Maybe it's unfair, because I do have a football background, but in my opinion, flag football is a sport that is easy to learn, but it's difficult to be good at. You need to be committed to your development, but it's easy to learn. You don't have to be a rocket scientist as a player or coach to understand the game, but to be really good at it, you have to be committed to the fundamentals. And it is really, as our parents are experiencing, it's exciting. It's the energy. We like to no-huddle, so we like to move pretty quick. It's a dynamic sport. I tell the girls in soccer, you're trying to stop a girl kicking a ball. In basketball, you're trying to stop a girl dribbling the ball. But in flag football, a girl gets to hold the ball in her hand and use all her athleticism she has. So it's a sport that requires athleticism and also precision, but when you put it all together, it's really an entertaining sport, and so maybe that's what I'd want people to know about.
