Canadian Head Coach Chris Koetting has about as good a coaching record as anyone around, but he deflects any praise and simply says he has had a lot of help on the way. While the wins are important and ultimately what each program, team, and player is measured by, Coach Koetting says there is more to what they do than meets the eye.

“I’ve always felt like the game of football is a great learning experience—and not just for being a good football player,” he said. “You learn so many things that will help you later on in life. You learn about work ethic. You learn about being unselfish. You learn about being dependable. And things like that will carry over into the rest of your life.”

Koetting pointed to the combined effort of his entire staff. “We have guys that are unbelievable coaches, but they are also unbelievable people,” he stated. “I think they do a great job of not just coaching football, but of mentoring these kids and teaching them life lessons.”

Those lessons, he says, are mirrored in the game of football. There are victories and setbacks, adversity and achievements, exhilaration and heartbreak. Coach Koetting said that keeping it all in perspective is key—not to get overly excited because of a win and not to get too down over a loss—not only on the field, but in life.

Life, like football, will always challenge you, and Koetting believes that what he coaches off the field is, in many ways, more important than what he coaches on the field.

“I’ve always thought that if we let our guys get out of school, and we haven’t taught them anything other than football, then we have failed them and we didn’t do our job,” Koetting said. “That is not just a part of what coaching is—it’s the most important thing.”

“These players will be able to use some of the lessons and things they learned in our programs to be successful after high school in the workforce, and to be good fathers, good people, and pillars in their community. That is the kind of young people we want to come out of our programs here in Canadian.”

To Koetting, the wins are not everything. “If we had a bunch of kids who didn’t have any character—who didn’t act right but won every game—I can honestly say that I wouldn’t be proud of that, and I don’t think our community would be proud of that,” he said. “Sure, we want to have a great football team, but we want to have kids that make our community proud and do things the right way.”

That begins with being responsible. “When you are a part of a team, you have got to be accountable and you have people counting on you. You have to be someone your team can trust,” he said.

In Koetting’s eyes, being part of a prominent team is distinctly dependent on being a great teammate—in the field, on the court, and in life. “They have to know you are going to put the work in and do good in your classes and stay out of trouble. When you are part of a team, people are counting on you.”

“It’s human nature to think of yourself,” he said. “But when you’re part of a team, that focus begins to shift away from you and more towards your teammates.”

Young people who learn to consider others learn that success is about more than just themselves, he said.

“One thing I have noticed about our players is that when they are being praised for their accomplishments, instead of bragging on themselves, they will usually deflect the compliments to their teammates.”

President Harry Truman once said, “It’s amazing what you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit.”

“I know this,” Koetting said. “When you have a group of great teammates, you have a chance to have a great team. Our kids are extremely unselfish. I think that’s why we’ve been so successful over the years. They are not thinking about themselves; they are thinking about the guy next to him.”

It is Koetting’s goal to have great men leave his program and not just great players. It’s a den of men that Canadian’s Koetting is raising—sure to be as victorious in life as they are victorious on Wildcat Friday nights.