Don't Kick My Cones!

In this episode, the team learns that dropping the ball is both a metaphor and the reality of our own situation in that game. The defense had a major let down, the offense literally dropped the ball, and we had to figure out what that means for us. Throughout this ordeal, new people emerged as valuable pieces, and while we had a let down, we found out that we have some untapped wells of talent, and we're excited to develop them and see how they can help us make a run. Some key players had some humbling experiences, and even though that game was a stinker, it forced us to ash the hard questions that help you get better. We hope you enjoy the episode.

We are looking to redeem our two previous seasons where Como Park beat us. The team is also trying to avoid the "Central Let Down," and keep their eye on the much bigger prize. The game starts slow, and the defense struggles early, the offense sputters and we find ourselves having to ask some hard questions. We rally, and finish 42-8 and build our confidence. The question raised by this, however, is at what cost? Listen to find out!

Week 4 brings us to the midpoint of the regular season and the opportunity to play our #1 rival: Central. The team is now further depleted losing one of our top running backs and olineman for at least a week in the Johnson game. We are not at full power, but no one will weep for us so we have to find a way to build a game plan that will help us be successful. The game comes with a lot of adversity, we have to find it within ourselves to figure things out to get a win. See how we get our come from behind victory versus central

In this Episode the team is needing to rebound from a sloppy week of play from the offense that led to defeat at the Hands of Bloomington Kennedy. As we go into the beginning of our league play against Johnson, we are eyeing big goals but are set back by a key injury in practice, and are left to figure out what we are going to do to get the win and life to fight another week. When asked by a reporter about "if we felt like this was a get back on track game," Coach Brown responds, "yes, but not in the way you think, we needed to get back to doing things our way and not focus on the win." Johnson week was an opportunity for us to get back to ourselves and find our path.

In this episode we debrief our 7-14 loss to Bloomington Kennedy, look through a challenging week, discuss something internal struggles, and remind our players and coaches that how you do anything is how you do everything. We learn why focus is so critical, why it's such an important thing to learn from failure, and how to metabolize hard lessons.

The opening game against Minneapolis Southwest brings a lot of stress. They had resoundingly beaten us by lopsided scores, and frankly made it look like we didn't belong. We were determined to have a good competitive showing, and launch our 2022 season in the right direction. In this episode we explore the week leading up to the Southwest game, our mentality and the push and pull that went into making it a success. We learned new habits, played as a team, and paid the F.E.E. and walked out with a 32-0 victory. We know this isn't the end, but only the beginning, and each week we succeed the better people will play against us, and the higher we have to raise our level of play. Listen to the episode to learn how we talk about these things and raise our player's level of play.

In this episode, Coach Brown shares our 11 goals for success. The in-depth understanding is that we are trying to build habits for life, and not just winning football games. You'll learn about why we don't have a ton of rules and punishments, and even though many question that as an approach, our growth as a team, our improvement in academics, community, and quality of play is evidence that it works. We are committed to taking the long sustainable path of building from a firm foundation, even if it means we'll take a while. This episode will give you an insight into what our players are learning, and how they are progressing.

This episode is a part of our "You Build This" series where we interview Highland Park Football Alums about what they are doing. In this episode, I take with Mario Delgado about his up and down experience with football, the lessons he learned from it, and how that led to his work in film making and up cycling clothes. Mario also shares personal reflections on his life, failures, happy moments, and shares some vulnerable truths that are universal and hopefully impactful for our listeners. Thanks to Mario for his support for this. Also, thank you to the Army National Guard for their support of our program in providing practice Jerseys for our team and supporting our efforts to build up our young people.

Season 2, Episode 1: Season two opens with Coach Brown reflecting on the 4 game skid that follows the last episode of Season 1's big victory against our rival Central. What follows is a 4 humbling defeats, each testing the mettle of the team, the resolve of the coaches, and the relationships they worked so hard to build. They learn from their losses and bounce back with a critical victory against a familiar foe at Harding. The lessons learned changed the team, and brought their collective need for each other, and the discipline needed to succeed, back into focus.

We play our rival in a big home game and get the Win! But the resulting success accolades sets us up for some hard lessons.

The Bloomington Kennedy game goes awry and we have to look in the mirror as a team to make sure that we get through this tough times. We realize what's going to fix this is leaning into our relationships, and everyone taking a slice of humble pie. The results are good and we begin our come back tour. We hope that we can ride the momentum as far as we can go.

In this episode we talk about our first game and the things that we discussed before hand: no matter what happens, you're going to know why. We'll talk about the team mentality, how we get on the same page, and the exciting things that are happening as we move through our season.

In this episode, Coach Brown Illuminates his way of thinking about how one becomes a winner.

Coach Brown discusses his coaching history, what he does the night before training camp, and things he looks forward to. In this episode, he expresses appreciation for his coaches, excited about his players, and reflects on his journey and how it has resulted in a strong feeling of gratitude. His greatest desire is to live up to being the coach his players need him to be and adding value to their lives as young people as well as athletes. You'll love this episode!

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