The guest on today’s Coach and Coordinator podcast is Dan Reardon, head football coach at Canton McKinley High School in Ohio. Reardon is in his fourth season at the helm at McKinley. In three full seasons, Reardon has amassed a 22-12 record and three appearances in the Ohio state playoffs. Prior to coaching at McKinley, Reardon was a head coach in Colorado at Wheat Ridge High School for a year and Poudre High School for two years.

Reardon began his head coaching career at Youngstown Ursuline High School in 2004. During his eight years at the helm, Reardon had a 72-29 record. Ursuline appeared in four state championship games, winning three in a row from 2008-10. Before becoming a head coach, Reardon was an assistant coach at Warren Harding High School (Ohio) from 1998-2003. Reardon’s coaching career began as a graduate assistant at Youngstown State University with head coach Jim Tressel, then at Indiana University with head coach Cam Cameron.

On today’s podcast, Reardon and host Keith Grabowski talk about learning from prominent coaches, making players competitive in the off-season and the significance of their rivalry game.

Show Notes

0:51 Journey to current head coach position

3:36 Lessons learned in early years of coaching

6:13 Responding to a down season after years of success

9:16 Tracking players within competition in the off-season

13:04 Tasking the players to come up with new drills and plays

14:13 Staying accurate with the accounting of ranking players

15:26 Accompanying for multi-sport athletes

17:28 Examples of off-season competitions

19:34 Making formation decisions based on personnel

23:27 Changing the defensive formation without confusing the players

24:53 Coaching in a historic rivalry game

27:49 First three games decided by less than three points

29:06 Mentally recovering after the game is over

31:14 The Winning Edge