2018 Best Leader of the Year Finalist: Virgil Smith
We are pleased to introduce you to one of our top finalists, Coach Virgil Smith. Congratulations, Coach Virgil!
BAND’s Best Leader of the Year Award is an esteemed honor for leaders with an extraordinary ability to band people together around a shared vision.
We are pleased to introduce you to one of our top finalists, Coach Virgil Smith. Congratulations, Coach Virgil!
Virgil Smith is the Head Coach for the Golden Empire Youth Football Southern Ravens in Bakersfield, California. Virgil grew up playing football, basketball, and baseball, but tore his knee early in his adult career and moved into coaching to follow in the footsteps of the great mentors he had growing up.
He decided to start coaching youth football because he wanted to be a positive male role model for kids in the same way that his coaches were to him. The majority of kids on the team are with Coach Virgil for six or seven years on and off, so he helps to guide their growth both on and off the field. Many of the kids that he coached years ago are now moving on to play football in college, and he is proud to have contributed to their personal growth.
Even though Coach Virgil has now been coaching for many years, he is always trying to discover new ways to inspire and uplift his team. He made sure to develop an offense and defense that plays to the strengths of the players on the field, instead of trying to push players in a way that doesn’t work well for them.
“I really believe that if you’re really good at something you should work 75% of your time on what you’re really good at. If you need to make improvements, you should work 15% of your time on things where you need to make improvements. And 10% of the time on things that you’re really not good at,” says Coach Virgil, “if you always work on the things you’re not good at, it’s demoralizing for kids. They want to know that they’re good at things, so you continue to instill that in them.”
By focusing on the positive things that kids are good at, it allows them to be hopeful in the work that they’re doing, giving them a sense of pride that helps them to excel.
This past year, Coach Virgil experimented by focusing on improving his own team instead of focusing on strategies to beat others. At practice after a game, he started to explain the areas where they did well and the areas that still needed work. He came up with a three-pronged approach: Focus, Discipline, and Attention to Detail.
Coach Virgil asks his athletes, “What’s your job? Everybody’s got a job. Eleven men on the field, if everybody does their job we can be successful and have a chance to win.”
Virgil and his wife are very hands-on with the families that make up the team and speak with the team parents to learn more about how the kids are doing off the field. Last year, one of the parents approached Coach Virgil and told him that her son wasn’t getting good grades at school, even though he was excelling on the football field. Coach Virgil pulled him off the field and told him that he had to think about what he was going to do to improve his grades before he’d be allowed to play.
He’s also had students who were bullying other students in school. When he finds out about it, he pulls them aside and asks them, “This is your family out here. You’re picking on your family, you’re picking on your brothers in school, why are you doing that?” and tell them to sit down and think of an explanation for how they plan to change if they want to be a part of the team family.
Parents trust Coach Virgil to be a father figure for kids who have none. If someone’s not doing their chores, parents can come to Coach and he will ask them to think about what it means to help out around the house. Even though Coach Virgil looks big and intimidating, the parents learn that he has a tender heart that cares deeply for the children on the team. If a child isn’t trying to do well in the rest of their life, they won’t be allowed to play. His goal is to mold and develop them to be better young men who value friendship and family.
Coach Virgil feels very strongly about the effect of winning and losing on young athletes. On a few games where his team had an overwhelming lead, Coach Virgil walked across the field and asked the other coach to put in their worst player to work together and give them a chance to score their very first touchdown.
“The worst thing for an eight or nine-year-old boy is to look at the scoreboard and see that you lost 48 to nothing. That’s humiliating for a kid. It’s demoralizing. So I walk across the field and I tell the other team, ‘Give me your worst. Give me your kid that’s only played ten plays, that’s never going to score a touchdown. Together we’re going to put him in the end zone.’”
Usually, the other coaches look at him like he’s crazy. But Coach Virgil wants to make sure that the other boy has a chance to feel like a champion. He asked the kids on his team and helped them understand how it would help enrich the experience for the other kid and give the team something to be happy about. He tries to instill in them a sense of having fun outside of just winning and losing the games.
During one of the final games last season, another coach approached Coach Virgil and asked him to do him a favor. The team had an autistic child on the team that they wanted to try and put him into the end zone. The first play, the players on Virgil’s team didn’t get the message and tried to attack the football.
Before the next play, Virgil told the six and seven-year-old boys that they needed to stay five feet away and let the other kid run. He ran the wrong way at first and right at the other players, weaving his way through until he finally scores a touchdown.
Later, the two teams lined up at the fifty-yard line to shake hands. The boy and his family were at the end of the line — mom, dad, grandpa, and grandma, and brother and sister. That day, Virgil showed everyone that football can be about having fun and that everyone should get a chance to play.
“It’s not about winning and losing all the time…it’s about how much fun you’re having out on the field.” — Coach Virgil
We are very pleased to honor Coach Virgil Smith as one of our top nine 2018 Best Leaders of the Year Finalists. His positive spirit is an inspiration to everyone here at BAND, and we hope that his story has inspired you!
Please be sure to check out all of the other amazing stories from our Finalists, and vote for who you think deserves to be named BAND’s 2018 Best Leader of the Year!
