My roots in this system go back to 1979, running the Run and Shoot (Double Slot) as an assistant to Steve Stanich at Central Catholic High School in Portland, Oregon. Lots of people in the Northwest were running it then, largely because of the influence of Darrell "Mouse" Davis, who had won a state championship at Hillsboro, Oregon, High and had moved on to Portland State, where he was putting up huge scores. Mouse, a brilliant offensive innovator, was the guy who eventually took the Run and Shoot to the pro level.

(Many people are under the mistaken impression that Mouse Davis invented the Run and Shoot. Actually, Mouse - who preferred to call his offense the "Double Slot" - always gave credit for its invention to the late Glenn "Tiger" Ellison, of Middletown, Ohio, whose book, "Run and Shoot Football," is still available through Parker Publishing. But most people who have read the book will recognize immediately Mouse Davis' role in modifying and popularizing Tiger Ellison's invention and adapting it to the pro game.)

DOUBLE SLOT (RUN AND SHOOT)

In 1980, I took a head coaching job at Hudson's Bay High, a large high school in Vancouver, Washington, and continued with the Run and Shoot that my predecessor at "Bay" had been running so successfully. But when it became apparent by my third year there that we were having as much success "Running" as "Shooting," especially with the misdirection game,  I decided to get serious and try to learn more about misdirection from the best in the business - the University of Delaware- so I contacted them and bought a playbook and a two-reel film package showing the Delaware Wing-T in action. It was the best purchase I ever made.

DELAWARE WING-T

I started out trying to run Delaware's plays from the double slot (Run and Shoot) formation, but soon realized the stupidity of trying to reinvent something that had already proven successful, and changed over to the Delaware attack 100 per cent.  Rather than adopt the Delaware numbering system, though, I retained my play-calling numbering and terminology, which I felt was a lot easier to teach to high school kids. I also liked it because it guaranteed that our backs wouldn't crash into each other (this is no joke - it is a major problem in teaching any misdirection offense). The decision to retain my terminology would turn out to be the key to the development of my current system.

That was 1983. Over the years, I came to love and respect the Wing-T (still do). We rarely had a player over 210 pounds, and one year our backfield averaged only 5-7 and 150 pounds, but our Wing-T kept us competitive in the state's largest classification.

Like Delaware, we ran from multiple sets - often shifting in and out of them - and we used lots of motion. Although we played with one end or the other split most of the time, our base set - which we just called "Tight" - was a Double Wing. We could - and sometimes did - run our entire package from it.

In 1987, I went overseas, spending two years running my Wing-T with a Finnish team. Overall, I coached in Finland for seven years, and in the process won two National Championships; but those first two years, playing in the top division with an inexperienced small-town team, were tough going. We moved the ball okay, but we stunk on defense. And the worst beatings we ever got - both years - were at the hands of a team from Helsinki, the big city - a team called the Roosters.

Compared to us small-town guys, the Roosters were big-time. They were big and talented and experienced, and they could afford two American coaches - one for offense and one for defense. Their offensive coordinator was a California named Don Markham, and he ran a power play that wouldn't quit.

He ran it from a Double Wing.  It looked almost the same as my Double-Wing - my "Tight" formation - but upon closer inspection, his "Tight" was really tight.  There were very tight splits (if any at all), and his fullback was much closer to the line of scrimmage. I could see how relatively easy it would be to adapt Don Markham's power play - and the trap that complemented it - to my system. But to do it I would have to tighten up my "Tight" formation, at least when I wanted to run those plays.

It didn't make a whole lot of sense to jump into that formation just to run those two plays, and yet I didn't want to give up the versatility and flexibility of my Delaware Wing-T system, so for me the big question became, "How much of the rest of my offense can I still run if I go to this tighter formation?"

The answer was, "all of it" - and then some. And, true to its Wing-T roots, we are able to run our core plays from a variety of formations. Two of them - "Tight" and "Slot" - are shown above.

Rather than go on, I have reprinted the article with which I introduced my first video, "Dynamics of the Double Wing." -

AN OFFENSE WORTH LOOKING AT - Reprinted from Texas Coach  Magazine, March 1996

Read my article on the "WILDCAT" direct-snap package from SCHOLASTIC COACH

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