AURORA – The Center football team, led by first-year head coach Ziere Banner, is 4-0 and ranked No. 7 in 8-Man after going 0-9 last season.
Today, he is being recognized as the Broncos High School Tackle 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 year, all Coach of the Week honorees will be recognized on the field during a pregame ceremony at Broncos home games.
Q&A with Ziere Banner:
What was your football background before becoming the head coach at Center High School?
I played high school football at Shoemaker High School in Texas. Went through some growing pains there. My freshman year, the team went 0-10. Next year, we went 1-9, and my junior year we went 2-8. My senior year we turned it around, made the playoffs for the first time in our school's history, and went 7-3 that year. From there, I took on a spot at (Texas-El Paso), and that was a tremendous experience playing at the Division I level. From there, I went to Adams State here in Colorado and finished my career there. I played in a Senior Bowl game down at Myrtle Beach (S.C.), and then after that, I stopped playing and wanted to get into coaching.
Did you have any prior experience with 8-man football before coaching at Center?
No sir, for the last two years, I was fortunate enough to be a grad assistant at Adams State and experience the complexity of the college game. But as soon as I graduated, Center offered me the job and I was just all for it. Eight-man, 6-man, 5-man, I was just all for getting my own opportunity to coach.
Coming into this season as a first-year coach, where did you decide to start with this program after they finished last season with a 0-9 record?
When you go into programs like that, obviously you need a culture change. That was my big thing. Getting the guys used to harder coaching and more strategic and tactical coaching. I feel like they bought into that right away, and that's why we're having success now. I grew up with some hard coaches, and that shaped me into the man that I've become. I've taken that with me all my life, so credit to my high school coaches. I believe in coaching guys hard and building relationships with them. I feel like that played a key role into my coaching style.
So is that how would you describe your coaching style or philosophy?
Yeah, I would say it's hard-nosed. I am more of an offensive guy, but being a head coach, I'm more ... up on defense now. I'm right at the age where I understood the older game of football, the physical game, and then I'm also at the age where I've seen the transition into the new age, the finesse game. I feel like I've gotten the best of both worlds, and it's shaped me into the hard-nosed coach that I am today.
With a 4-0 start to the season, have your expectations for the rest of the season changed?
I'm not really the guy that looks too far ahead. I know that we're doing well right now, but I'm constantly preaching that we go 1-0. We've got to go 1-0 this day, we've got to go 1-0 tomorrow, and we've got to go 1-0 this whole week. Then we can let the chips fall where they may, so we can be ready for anybody. We can line them up and see how it goes.
How do you keep your players from becoming complacent with this early success?
On Mondays, we have film, and that's more of a yelling session than anything. I still praise the good plays, but at the end of the day, if we win 40-0 or 12-0, I'm constantly in the film room. I'm just trying to get better, trying to see how we can get better and how we can evolve. I feel like me not being complacent is helping them from becoming complacent.
What does it mean to your team and this community to have this team? What does it mean to you as a first-time head coach?
This is tremendous. My wife is from out here, so it cuts deep in home base. These guys went 0-9 last year, so a lot of these seniors didn't win a lot of games in their whole career. Me seeing that, I get a good feeling, but at the end of the day, I'm always trying to get these guys better. I think just homing in on our craft and being technical every day, I feel like that's helping us.
Is there anything that I missed or anybody you want to give a shout out to that we didn't get a chance to speak about already?
I definitely want to shout out my players and assistant coaches. Coach Joe (Garcia) is a tremendous help. He was the head coach last year, and I'm glad I got to keep him on board. He's been a tremendous help with the Colorado game itself. I like to give a shout out to my AD (Adam Sperandio) and family. Especially my wife (Deidrah), she's the reason we're 4-0. I will give her all the credit because she helps me have a great mindset going into every day.
