Coach P on football’s lessons: Put the people first and results will follow

Last year, the McMaster Marauders were chasing their first Vanier Cup championship. They were predators.

This year, they are defending Vanier Cup champions. They are prey.

The difference is great, and the weight of expectations is heavy, but head coach Stefan Ptaszek is taking the very same approach as always: put the people first, and the results will follow.

The formula has helped the Marauders put together the record-breaking, 20-game winning streak that the team is taking into Saturday’s Mitchell Bowl against the Calgary Dinos (4 p.m., Ron Joyce Stadium). The winner will play for the 2012 Vanier Cup.

“We haven’t sneaked up on anyone this year. We’ve been ranked No. 1 since the opening poll. That puts a target on your chest,” Ptaszek said in a recent sit-down before practice.

While defending a national championship is challenging, the coach says his team also benefits from last year’s experience, reaching the Vanier Cup as underdogs and beating the favoured Laval Rouge et Or.

“We have a good sense of what it takes to go the distance, and we’re trying leverage those learnings and let the chips fall where they may,” he said.

What’s helping the team, the coach said, is that winning McMaster’s first national championship last year has not lulled his players into complacency. Quite the opposite, he says, crediting his senior players for their leadership.

“They’ve been pressing and pushing and so mature and setting such a great example for my young kids. What you worry about when you’re trying to go back to a very special place is that you won’t roll up your sleeves and do the work. I’ve got some great leaders who have been pushing us, frankly, to keep up with them.”

To create a winning culture, Ptaszek said, the key has been bringing in coaches who are good people above all else, and can bring out the best in players, on and off the field.

“When I say Coach (Greg) Knox and Coach (Jon) Behie are the best defensive and offensive co-ordinators in the country, and when I say our positional coaches are the best in the country, it really has nothing to do with football,” he said.

“The No. 1 criteria is not how many touchdowns they score, or how many sacks or interceptions they get. It’s the impact they have on young men’s lives. They’re family men and role models and quality people. At it turns out, they’re pretty good with the Xs and Os and the football side of things.”

Ptaszek also happens to believe that football is the best medium for teaching many of life’s most important skills.

“The ability to work within a team, to manage stress, to make decisions on the fly, to handle adversity, to get knocked down over and over and over again and learn the only way to be successful is to get up — these are lessons that football teaches better than anything I’ve ever been a part of. That is so invaluable for life and it’s why so many of my staff, myself included, have dedicated such a large portion of their existence to being involved in football.”

Below, coach Ptaszek talks about learning life lessons from football, from his office in the David Braley Athletic Centre.