Beyond the X: Demands come in many forms for high school football coaches

10. Keep the shed door shut
It was two days following Granite Bay's state title last season and Cooper was exhausted.

There was no parade that day, no day off, no game plan for the next week. Instead he collected gear.

Normally, Cooper, meticulous in everything he does, would sort and organize the equipment. If not that day, then the days following.

Not this time.

"I was at the end of my rope," he said. "Just like a lot of guys around the country I suppose. So, I just left it in there. I didn't look at it for months.

"You need to recognize when you're at your limit. Don't go over it to the point where you hate your job. Even if it means you're a little behind."

11. Making a difference
Cooper was like a kid in a candy store tracking the final fitness marks for his class. He's always loved numbers. It's his math gene.

Moreso, it's a viable, legible, sure-proof scale of progress. It might be what Cooper loves most about his job.

"We've trained for 17 weeks and at last we see all the gains," he said. "It's a reminder to myself that I made a difference. I see that they achieved something they couldn't achieve by themselves."

12. System, repetition, belief, gold
Better than tracking bench press and squats is watching game tape, specifically the game tape from the Long Beach Poly victory.

Sheer gold.

Cooper said he's been asked constantly about the team's famed game-winning six-play, 77-yard drive capped by a 3-yard touchdown run by John Cooley with 1:12 left.

The Grizzlies hadn't managed a touchdown drive all night but with everything on the line, they put it all together like they had practiced it every day for the previous seven months. The fitness. The repetition. The attention to detail all paid off when it mattered most.

But Cooper maintained the Grizzlies did nothing different on the drive, other than execute. It was the base fly offense. It was the painstaking drills Cooper hammered "in small quantities over and over and over and over again," he said. "I tell young coaches, you have to practice it again and again and again."

So when Cooper watched it on film and matched it to film from the previous spring camp, it was much like tracking the gains in the weight room. Only sweeter and more meaningful.

With a cherry on top.

"What I saw in spring camp was (yikes)," he said. "Then to see us do it right at the highest level, in the biggest moment. … That will keep you going. I still get excited about that. The evolution of a team and young people."

13. No backup plan
Over the last decade, Cooper has talked retirement or a year break after painful defeats or long seasons. He's been coaching full-time for 30 straight years, after all.

The most earnest consideration was after the 2012 season, Cooper said, not because the Grizzlies won it all.

"I felt like I had done my job whether we won or not," he said. "It was just a really long season."

So, Cooper said, the conversation with Carol went like this.

"She asked me what I was going to do and I said I don't know. I told her I had no backup plan. She said ‘You better keep coaching dude.'"

When his daughter gets a little older, he might consider stepping down and coaching her.

But, until then. ... "This is what I'm supposed to be doing. It's what I love to do."