Video: Top 100 Preseason football teams
See some of the schools that get the nod this year as the Top 100.Coach Lamont Butler has a unique perspective, one that many high school coaches would love to have. He has coached at both the prep and collegiate levels. He was the head coach at
Horizon Christian Academy (San Diego), where his 2014 offense set many school records, and currently he is the defensive coordinator at Trinity International University in Deerfield, Ill.
Butler, in his second stint at Trinity, is a graduate of Sacramento State in California, where he played linebacker and defensive end from 2006-07
What is the biggest difference between coaching college and high school football?The biggest difference is time and how you balance it. As a high school coach, you also work as a teacher or work another job in some cases. For me, I worked as a teacher and as the head football coach. When I coached high school I had to do lesson plans, grading, create tests, faculty meetings, lunch duty, student interviews (I worked in the international program) and whatever else was assigned to me, on top of the things I had to do for football.
Everything I do as a college coach pertains to football or our team. I will spend the day recruiting, meeting one-on-one with players (meetings about academics, life, weight room or football), working on practice plans or the playbook, or watching film. Did I mention recruiting?
I also think the difference between the two is the time spent away from your family. At the high school level, when practice was over or school was out, I went home to my family. At the college level, I have to recruit a lot of times outside the office. If I'm not recruiting on the phone, we may have a recruit on campus, or I may have to adjust some things before the next practice.
What is the biggest fallacy about coaching college football?
Lamont Butler
Photo courtesy of Steve Bates, WCS Photography
The biggest fallacy is that you get paid a ton of money and that you have arrived. There is a ton of money in college football and some schools are able to pay their coaches hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars. But that isn't the majority.
Most full-time coaches are making anywhere from $20,000-$50,000 and that could be at a really good school.
Another thing people think is that you have arrived. As a coach I don't ever think we can say we have arrived and don't need to learn anymore. I have learned a ton since I have coached at the college level and there is so much more I can learn as well. Because the game is evolving so much, we will continue to learn until we hang up the whistle and clipboard.
What do you miss most about coaching high school?I miss the Friday night atmosphere. There is nothing like high school football on Friday nights. I also miss the players and being able to shape and mold. At the college level, we shape and mold but the majority of players if they had a good high school coach will only need refining rather than trying to mold the entire person.
What advice do you have for coaches who want to coach college football?Don't get into it for the money. You have to genuinely love and care for the guys you are coaching, love football and be willing to sacrifice. My first college job I made $10,000 and my wife and I lived in a different state - talk about sacrifice. This has to be what you want to do, and also your family has to support you.
For the married guys, your spouse has to know you will be gone long nights. If they are not supportive of that it will not work.
As far as the guys you are coaching, the old saying "people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." Relationships are big. I am going on 10 years coaching and didn't learn to apply the relationship piece until the seventh year. We don't coach for the income, we coach for the outcome. I won't know how well of a job I did as a coach until 10, 20, 50 years down the road when I am able to see how the type of men that I coached and mentored are doing in life. If I have no impact on their life outside of football then I failed as a coach.
Chris Fore is a veteran Head Football Coach and Athletic Director from Southern California. He consults coaches and programs nationwide through his business Eight Laces Consulting.
