"We do the extra." It's the effort Cochrane High School Cobras football co-head coach and defensive coordinator Bruce O'Neil expects from his defensive players.
"We do the extra."
It's the effort Cochrane High School Cobras football co-head coach and defensive coordinator Bruce O'Neil expects from his defensive players.
It's their ethos, their mantra.
Following 34 for years of coaching generations of Cobras football players, O'Neil's ?extra? has been recognized. The 59-year-old retiring Cochrane High physical education teacher, who will continue coaching the football team, has been inducted into the Alberta Schools' Athletic Association Coaching Hall of Fame. O'Neil, fellow head coach and Hall of Fame inductee (2013) Rob McNab and former principal (2001-07) Chris Lees were in Edmonton May
7 to accept O'Neil's award.
It started in 1981 for O'Neil, hired as a young teacher at Cochrane High.
?When I went for the interview in June, for the September job, the principal made it known that if I wasn't willing to coach, I wasn't going to get the job,? O'Neil recalls of then-principal Alf Gould's demands for a phys-ed teacher. ?He also said you'd have to come a week before school started because that's when football starts.?
The conditions of employment suited O'Neil just fine.
?That was on the table right from Day 1. Which was not difficult for me because that's what I wanted to do. So that was cool.?
O'Neil walked through the front door of Cochrane High in August 1981 and right out the back door to the football field. He inherited a program seeking a makeover. Coaching alongside Rick Schulte, the Cobras football program experienced growing pains.
?It took us five years to figure out how to coach. And so we didn't win very often,? O'Neil recounts. ?We'd win half, lose half. And the scores were like 14-7 type thing. Then we got it figured out and won two provincial championships in 1986-87.?
When Schulte left, former University of Calgary Dinos quarterback McNab arrived in 1991. The Cochrane High football program really took off with O'Neil as defensive coordinator and McNab calling offensive plays. Both share head-coaching duties.
?Everyone has the X's and 0's. Everyone can draw up the plays,? O'Neil observes of his coaching partner for 25 years. ?Rob can look at the plays and figure out why they didn't work. Was it because the other team stopped us or because we didn't execute?
?He knows how to teach the quarterback.?
Over 34 years patrolling the sidelines, O'Neil has done his best to keep pace with changes in the game.
But one thing remains constant throughout his coaching tenure.
?The philosophy stays the same,? O'Neil insists. ?We're very well-prepared. It's seldom that the other team surprises us. Know their strengths. Know their weaknesses. And prepare the kids to succeed.?
After 34 years, O'Neil has coached that ethos right into the Alberta Schools' Athletic Association's Coaching Hall of Fame. Since his arrival in 1981 the Cochrane High School Cobras football team has won 13 provincial championships and 15 South Central Alberta Zone championships. The school's graduates include current Canadian Football League pros like Alex Krausnick-Groh of the Edmonton Eskimos and Calgary Stampeders fullback Rob Cote.
?I wouldn't want to be anywhere else,? O'Neil surmises. ?The 34 years I've coached here, I've gotten more out of it than I ever put into it.
?It's been a passion.?
