Coach Gotte talks summer training for Paetow Panther football

By R. Hans Miller, News Editor
Posted 7/4/21

Paetow High School Head Football Coach and Athletic Director William “BJ” Gotte has his student-athletes working hard this summer to prepare for the fall football season. He said he is …

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Coach Gotte talks summer training for Paetow Panther football

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Paetow High School Head Football Coach and Athletic Director William “BJ” Gotte has his student-athletes working hard this summer to prepare for the fall football season. He said he is excited about the level of player engagement in his school’s young football program and has them focused on skill development over the summer.

Gotte took time out of his busy practice schedule to answer questions about what he is doing to continue to build up the four-year-old school’s football team while making sure each of his players has a chance to excel.

Q: Paetow’s football program is still young but has made great progress since it started. What do you feel has been the team’s biggest area of progress on the field since the campus opened in 2017?

A: The biggest factor that has contributed to our early success here at Paetow High has been the player and parent buy-in to our football program. The kids and parents have bought into what we are teaching, and their trust in us as a staff has allowed us to maximize our potential as a team.

Q: What area of play are you planning on focusing your training program on over the summer and what are you expecting from your players over the summer?

A: During the summer we focus on a few areas. During our sports-specific skill session, we have a tiered approach that begins with a three-week phase where we focus on position-specific fundamentals. For the next four weeks, we turn our attention to the re-installation of our offensive and defensive schemes. During all seven weeks, we take time during each skills session to work on various special teams' skills as well.

The second half of our summer preparations happen during our summer strength and conditioning camp (also known as SAC). This is a seven-week program where our athletes are preparing their bodies for the physical, mental, and emotional challenges that a football season will present to them.

Q: As new players try out to represent the Panthers on the field, what are you looking for in terms of leadership skills and athletic ability in freshmen or players transferring in from other schools?

A: The expectations we have in our program are simple – do your best. Do your best in the classroom, do your best on the field, and do your best in the community. Every player in our program whether it is a senior who has been part of our team from the beginning, or a freshman/transfer who has just stepped on our campus for the first time is held to the same standard. It is my job as head coach and my staffs' job as coaches and educators to help each kid reach their fullest potential to be the best version of themselves on and off the field. We feel our schemes in all three phases of the game are flexible enough to maximize the strengths of each group as a whole and every athlete individually as they work through our program.

Q: As you move into this summer’s strength and conditioning program, what does a typical week look like for a Paetow athlete as they work toward the fall football season?

A: We are on a four-day workweek, and we begin the day with 10th-12th-grade sport-specific skills from 6:30 a.m. to 7:15 a.m. After our skills session, our athletes transition to 9th-12th-grade summer strength and conditioning from 7:30 am to 9:30 am. Once summer strength and conditioning have concluded, our incoming ninth graders complete their sport-specific skills from 9:45 a.m. to 10:20 a.m.

Paetow, Football, BJ Gotte