To my fellow high school football fans,
This isn't a letter about wins, records, or which boys are the most talented athletes in the building. This is a letter about the game of football and how it can teach young boys to be men.When it comes to football, I haven’t missed a two-a-day practice since 1995. I have grown up in this sport and played it at every level. This game has given me some of the richest experiences as well as some of the most challenging and heartbreaking ones, and both have grown me in equally meaningful ways. As a coach, I believe, now more than ever, that all boys should have the opportunity to play high school football.My mission over the last 17 years has been for every boy to have the opportunity to grow through the successes
and failures that the game of football gives him, whether he will be playing on Sundays or not.
We need high school football for the normal kid — the one who isn't chasing a scholarship, the one who might not start, the one who just wants to belong to something bigger than himself. Because that boy needs a team just as much as the DI prospect. College football will be there for the boys who have that gift.
We live in a world that has quietly decided sports are only for the elite. Travel teams, private trainers, specialization. All built for the kid who might have the gift of being a Power 4 athlete. Somewhere in that shuffle, we've forgotten the other 99%. The boys who may never play past Friday nights, but who need what this game teaches just as desperately, maybe even more. Most of our high school football players will never be professional athletes, but, Lord willing, they’ll grow into men who contribute meaningfully to our communities, grow families, and effect positive change.
As Coach Joe Ehrmann notes in the InsideOut Initiative, every athletic program operates with a goal and a purpose. The goal is immediate: win games and contend for championships. But our true purpose is permanent: build men of great character.
As former statesman Ben Sasse mentioned in a recent article, the institutions that historically formed boys into men – work, church, a family farm, military service – have faded from many of their lives.
Joe Ehrmann taught us that in order to be a man, a boy has to see a man. When that man isn't there, somebody has to stand in the gap, and coaches and teammates in our communities can be that somebody.
Here's the truth about every boy on a roster, star or scout-team player: he wants to belong, and he wants to matter. He wants to know he has what it takes. He wants to please the people he looks up to, and he doesn't want to let them down. A team is one of the few places left that meets all of that, every single day. And we believe every one of these boys has something to offer, something of real value. That value has nothing to do with how good he is at football.
Drive two hours outside any school district on a Saturday morning and ask a stranger who won Friday night's game. Almost no one knows, and fewer care. That is the true weight of a scoreboard. A boy's athletic goal might fall short on any given Friday night, but his purpose is available every single day – whether he is a starter or the last player off the bench.
Legendary coach John Wooden defined success as the self satisfaction of knowing you did all you could to become the best you're capable of becoming. There is nothing in there about talent or the depth chart. Every boy can be successful by Wooden’s definition – on the same day, on the same team. Today’s world of transfer portals and NIL robs young boys of time. A boy on a team pours entire seasons of his life into teammates and coaches. Time turns teammates into brothers, and a coach's voice into a trusted voice, much like a father in many cases. Relationships take time. Creating something of value takes time. Impatience for results cannot take precedence over the long but critical process that builds grit and bonds teams.To my colleagues, coaches across the state of Tennessee pouring into their boys and their communities:We must not surrender high school football to a win-at-all-costs culture. It must remain a place of transformation, to be part of something bigger than ourselves. Because we are not just building athletes here. We are building sons, friends, husbands, fathers and leaders who know what it takes to fight for things that matter — the men our community will need for the next 50 years. This is our purpose.
With gratitude,
Ingle Martin
Ingle Martin is the head football coach and athletic director at Christ Presbyterian Academy. He played high school football at Montgomery Bell Academy. After playing college football at Florids and Furman, he was drafted by the Green Bay Packers in 2006.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: High school football is for the 'normal kid,' not just the Power 4 recruit | Ingle Martin
