Last week my squad, the Kaiserslautern Pikes, completed our season with a 27-0 win over the Frankfurt Universe. The game was special for multiple reasons:
1) We completed the season 10-0 and were crowned Regionalliga Mitte Champions
2) We set single game home attendance record with over 1600 fans attending the game.
3) It was the first championship that I won as a coach on any level.
The feeling I had as the clock started winding down is tough to explain. At the time it was exciting, but there wasn’t an outward amount of emotion on my part. To me it was just another game, another win. This was something that I had stressed the week before to me my team, as we didn’t changed anything in our routine and maybe I had just conditioned my mind to think that way throughout the entire day.
The celebration was great! The management had arranged for T-Shirts right after the game, and we even had a champagne celebration. I was given the customary “Gatorade” bath…..multiple times, which ultimately destroyed my phone. But still the impact of what we had just accomplished had not hit me, until two days later.
As a coach I have never finished a season undefeated, and as a player I only did that once as a JV football player. I don’t care what league you play in, winning all your games is special. We had our close calls and a bounce here or there might have had alter that course, but it didn’t. I stressed to my players that this will be something we all look back on 20-25 years from now and we can reflect on special it was. I only wished I had told myself that as the game was ending. I still get that “euphoria” feeling as I think back to that game that is only 8 days old as I write this. This is something that every coach who works his butt off for his team deserves at least once.
I would like to thank my assistant coaches, Shawn Miles and Mike Castro (though I don’t they read my ramblings). Both of these guys volunteered their time to help our team achieve our goals. I imagined it was just as tough for them as it was for me to mesh together as a coaching staff. They did a great job the whole year and stuck with our team through some tough times during the season.
Now its’ off to the 2nd Division. The offseason can be tricky in Germany as turnover is inevitable, I really like the core group of guys we have but with every team on ever level you sometimes have to make some tough decisions regarding personnel. Just because we have moved up to 2nd Division doesn’t mean I’m satisfied. I want to do more then just compete, I want to move up again.
