Photo by: Cory Juillard
AURORA — The Overland flag football team, coached by Austin Conway, won four straight games in a span of seven days, and has improved to 5-3 for the season and is ranked No. 22 in 5A.
Today, he is being recognized as the Broncos High School Flag Coach of the Week. The Denver Broncos and CHSAA will continue to honor one flag football coach and one tackle football coach each week throughout the season.
Throughout the season, all Coach of the Week honorees will be recognized on the field during a pregame ceremony at Broncos home games
Q&A with Austin Conway:
How did you become involved with flag football, and how did you become the head coach at Overland?
Flag football sprung on me randomly. I just had knee surgery, and didn't want to get back out and do anything after having that injury. Then a couple of my friends that went to Overland reached out to me and asked me to come play flag football. I was looking at it as an opportunity to get some conditioning and get back in shape. I ended up meeting a lot of people who've been around flag football forever, and ended up partnering with Mario Lopez, who's the head program facilitator at Lace Up Jr., the girls' travel flag football team. It was just fate to give it a try, and to get involved. All of a sudden, I'm coaching, loving it, and next thing you know, I get a teaching position over at Overland, and another flag football opportunity comes up.
Have your own playing experiences from both tackle and flag football affected your coaching style?
Absolutely. I t's a significant blend of both. I get to bring the structure and the technique of tackle football, and then blend it with the different variations and nuances of flag football. It creates a good balance because there's a lot of things in tackle football that translate right over.
How would you describe your coaching style or philosophy?
Intense, and very attentive to details. We believe proper preparation prevents poor performances. We will make sure that our girls are prepared every week. Those small details are big details when it really matters. I'm very hard on them about their grades and about their character. I just think it's important. I want us to be high-energy, supportive, positive. I want us to be able to take constructive criticism, but I also want us to be able to have the mental capacity to move on and understand that there's more out there. We call it, next play, next day mentality. If it's something we mess up on, it's the next play. If we have a bad day, it's the next day.
Did you have any mentors from your own personal career who you model any coaching strategies after?
A lot of it comes from just a blend of every single coach that I've been with. There are things that you learn playing for different coaches, and then the cool thing about it is once you become a head coach yourself, you get to pretty much take ingredients from all the other people, and then you make your own sauce. I wouldn't say I mimic anyone because
it's a perfect blend of all the coaches that I've had. Now I get to try to figure out how it translates to my team so they can be successful.
When you played for Overland, you were a leader for your team as a player. How does it compare to being a leader from coaching point of view?
It's no different. Being a leader in football, being a leader in general, is just bringing people with you and inspiring people -- making sure that you're always bringing the best out of people that they sometimes don't even know they have.
What does it mean to you to coach this team and be a part of a sport that gets more recognition every day?
I think it's awesome. I never thought I would be in this position. I tell my players all the time, there's so much opportunity in this sport because it's so new. Once it progresses and becomes a huge national thing, which it's starting to become, we're already ahead of it, and we're prepared for it. One of my biggest goals is, how can I help a million people? And through coaching, I can do it, because there's opportunity for girls to play at the next level, or maybe I can bring characteristics to another event in their lives.
Is there anything that you want to shout out or anything that I missed?
Absolutely, coaches lose games, players win games, so all of them deserve just as much recognition as I do. I may get the title, but everything goes right back to them, because they're the ones who have locked in. They're the ones who are executing game plans. I'm sure that they would say the same, but we're family, so I see any individual award as a team award, truly.
