ABOUT COACH WYATT...

 

getting started I grew up in the Germantown section of Philadelphia and played my high school ball at Germantown Academy under Ed Lawless, a firm believer in the single-wing. I graduated from Yale in 1960, and played football all four years, with no great distinction; I started on the frosh team, but spent most of the remainder of my "career" on scout teams. (It is a matter of some regret that I spent a little too much time enjoying myself and not enough time applying myself - athletically and academically.) While injured my senior year, I volunteered to coach my house's intramural (tackle) football team, and immediately caught the coaching bug. After graduation, though, married and with a family to support, I did what was expected of an Ivy-Leaguer, and went into business. I wouldn't get into coaching for another 10 years. During those years, I missed football desperately, and in 1968, at the urging of my wife, I jumped at the chance to play football with the Frederick (Maryland) Falcons, of the Interstate League. Given a second chance to play football, this time I took it seriously. After two years as a player, I was offered the chance to manage and coach a team in nearby Hagerstown, Maryland. It paid next to nothing, and it meant giving up a good job and taking a series of part-time jobs, but I saw it as my chance to do what I should have done 10 years before. It was my ticket to football coaching. getting into coaching - the hard way I've paid my dues, starting back in 1970, when I coached and ran that minor league (semi-pro) team in Hagerstown. I coached there for three years, thriving on the players cut by the Colts, Eagles, Steelers and Redskins, and when the World Football League got started in 1974, I knew where to find players.  I spent two years in the WFL, in 1974 as Player Personnel Director of the Philadelphia Bell, and in 1975, after a move to the West Coast, as Assistant  GM/PR Director of the Portland Thunder. When the WFL went out of business in mid-season 1975, I returned to college to pick up education credits, and started teaching and coaching in 1976 at Gaston, Oregon High, a school with fewer than 200 kids in four grades. I was 38 years old, just in case you're wondering if it's too late for you to get into teaching and coaching. Since then, I've been a head coach at five different high schools, and an assistant at four, both large and small. I spent the summer of 1986 as an intern in the athletic department at LSU under AD Bob Brodhead, my former boss with the Portland Thunder. For three years, I did color analysis on Portland State's telecasts. I've coached overseas, in Denmark and Finland; the highlights of my seven years in FINNISH FOOTBALL   from 1987-1993 were (1) Winning the Maple Bowl, the National Championship of the top division, in 1989, and (2) building a new team totally from scratch and, in two years, winning the 1992 Division II National Championship and the Division II Coach of the Year award. It was while in Finland that I first saw Coach Don Markham's Double-Wing in action, and it was there that I mixed some of its principles with the Delaware Wing-T I had been running and the numbering system I had developed, and began running my version of the Double-Wing. In 1996 I was named head coach at LaCenter, Washington, High, a school of about 600 students (9-12) about 20 miles north of Portland, Oregon.  At the  time I was hired, the Portland Oregonian called La Center "perhaps the most forlorn program in the state of Washington." (During the 1980's, La Center once lost 39 games a row.)  By my third year, 1998, we made it to 5-4, not a spectacular mark by most standards, but at La Center, the first winning record in school history as an 11-man program! (I take great pride in the fact that my successor at La Center, John Lambert, a former student, player and assistant of mine, has taken the program to undreamed-of heights, including the 2003 state Class 2A Semifinals.) In May of 1999, I took the head coaching job at Washougal, Washington, the town adjacent to Camas, where I live. Washougal had won just two games in the previous two seasons, but when I arrived I found good kids who told me they were willing to work hard, and sure enough, they were. Although they had been a passing team, they took a quick liking to the Double-Wing, and after losing our first two games to strong opponents, we got it together and ran off seven straight, finishing the regular season at 7-2, the unbeaten Southwest Washington AA league champs. I was deeply honored to be voted Coach of the Year by my fellow coaches. In April of 2000, with some regrets, I decided to resign my position. Since then, I have been kept plenty busy answering e-mail, keeping up the NEWS page on the web site, travelling to put on clinics and camps, and trying without a great deal of success to find the time to work on the many projects on my "to do" list. The past two seasons, I have been privileged to work as an assistant to head coach Tracy Jackson at Madison High School in Portland, coordinating the offense. (Guess what we ran?). In 2004, after winning only four games total in the previous four years, Madison finished the regular season 7-2, its best record in years. Madison 2004 video production Video is a great way to improve your efffectiveness as a coach. I have a professional background in this area; I've taught classes on the subject, and as you may know, I've produced my own videos. Maybe I can be of some help to you in this area. Video Production consulting, camps and clinics Since 1997, I've put on dozens of clinics and camps around the country, dealing with football in general and the Double-Wing offense in particular. Perhaps I can help your organization or program. Camps and clinics. marketing Football is actually my second career. Before I became a high school football coach, at age 38, I had already had a career in PR, marketing and advertising. I worked in marketing with a Baltimore brewer, I've worked for a printing company, I've sold TV commercial time  and done sports on TV, and I've written sports for daily newspapers. I've been the PR Director of a pro football team, and I've been a TV color man.  You may find yourself needing some marketing advice; if so, maybe I can help you there.