NEW TAMPA — There are easier ways to spend a muggy July morning than watching the Freedom Patriots practice football.
New coach Chadd Wood would probably agree.
Two running backs got hurt before practice. Freshmen skipped practice for orientation. A total of 15 kids tried to mimic plays where 22 players are generally required.
At one point, Wood looked around, laughed and shrugged.
“I left Chamberlain for this,” he joked.
Actually, he did.
And Freedom should be better off because of it. If you need a coach to rescue a program that dove headlong off the cliff many years ago, Wood might be that guy.
At Chamberlain, he inherited a program that had gone 0-10, survived the fallout from the James Wilder Jr. coaching saga and on pretty short notice, turned the Storm into a playoff team in just a few months. His teams finished 7-4 with first-round playoff losses and scored more points than any team at Chamberlain had in nearly two decades.
He had kids buy into the program, and perhaps most impressive in today’s transfer-happy world, said he didn’t lose a single player to another school while he was there.
The way he describes it sounds almost simple, and it was something he says he learned as a college football player.
“We do things the right way, and we do things the right way every single time,” he said. “Winning is just a symptom of us doing the right thing constantly.”
When Chamberlain’s athletic director left, Wood could have stayed where he was. But he and his wife bought a home in Land O’ Lakes, and one of Hillsborough County’s top rising coaches voluntarily accepted what will be an even tougher rebuilding job.
Wood, 42, thinks the Patriot program, with the school’s size and New Tampa location, might be a sleeping giant. Others might say, maybe, if you use a sundial as your snooze button.
The Patriots, 2-8 last year, recently endured a 32-game losing streak. Coaches have come and gone. Players have fled. One coach broke the losing streak, quit the job the next year, and his replacement didn’t even make it through spring practice.
The program needs an exorcist as much as it needs a new coach.
Enter Wood, who offers an impressive resume and a balanced dose of enthusiasm and reality.
The early roster is a patchwork of projects.
Need an offensive tackle?
“I’ve got a wrestler who’s never played football.”
Need another receiver?
“One kid is 6-foot-4 and told me he was a defensive end. I told him, ‘Now you’re a receiver.’”
Need a linebacker?
“Here’s a 14-year-old freshman. Throw him into the deep end.”
There’s even a new player from Mexico trying out. Brought his own helmet. Wood jokes that he may have accidentally picked the wrong futbol.
But the coach loves his energy, and his effort. That’s one of Wood’s dealbreakers: If you have neither, you can’t play.
At one practice last week, he had more than 20 kids participating. The next day, there were 15, thanks to injuries, jobs, vacation. It was a slow, listless group of players that didn’t seem into it.
He was frustrated at times, but never angry. He has a plan. It will take time, and eventually, he thinks it will all click.
Today wasn’t that day.
“We’re going to call an audible,” Wood said, before ending practice early.
There are no illusions here about instant turnarounds. Wood knows exactly what he’s walking into. What he’s selling, in the first week of practice, isn’t the promise of wins. It’s the promise that his process, which worked at Chamberlain, where he diligently helped 18 players earn college scholarship offers, will work here as well, as long as the players buy in.
And there’s the rub.
Wood didn’t think the Freedom job would be harder than the Chamberlain resurrection, because it was a bigger school in a better area with more support.
But one noticeable difference does, in fact, make it harder.
“The kids that I had at Chamberlain, they were tired, they were done losing, and they were ready to do whatever it was that needed to be done to change their outcome,” Wood said. “I don’t really see that yet from these kids at Freedom.”
Wood says maybe the Freedom players show it differently, but they didn’t show it at practice.
“Effort is free, you can give all of it, even if you only have half a tank or an empty tank, and you’re tired,” Wood said. “In today’s practice, there really wasn’t a lot of effort, so it makes me say in my mind, maybe these kids ain’t ready yet.”
He gets it. He knows the history, can understand the dearth of hope. He hopes he can reach the freshmen and sophomores who may not have a frame of reference yet. He hopes he can bring some joy back to football for the juniors and seniors.
That’s the real rebuild.
“I’d like to solidify myself as one of the better high school football coaches to play for,” he said.
Wood doesn’t complain about what he doesn’t have. He thinks there will be kids who want to come play for him. Already, at least one kid who left the program because of the last coach has returned, and he expects more are coming.
He offers a fresh approach. Instead of focusing on what his players are, he talks more about what they can become. That’s why he can move a kid from defensive end to wide receiver and start a freshman at linebacker.
It’s not blind optimism. He says it’s how he’s always coached.
“My goal is to make my football team know more about football than anybody else in the area,” he said. “I think that ultimately, if you pour into the kids, if you give them a vessel and teach them how to use the vessel, they will succeed.”
He rebuilt a struggling program in Virginia. Then he did it again at Chamberlain.
A third time in New Tampa? Freedom has chewed up plenty of optimistic coaches.
But Wood has done it before.
Freedom is betting he can do it again.
John C. Cotey is a managing editor of the Tampa Bay Beacons. He can be reached at jcotey@tampabeacon.com.