For Callahan, Every Season is Football Season

One does not get rich coaching high school football, at least not in Connecticut, so Ridgefield High School varsity coach Kevin Callahan paints houses during the off season to help make ends meet.

But for Callahan, the off season is a tiny part of the year as football-related training starts well before the first team practice.

Players come in throughout the summer for fitness training, weight lifting and agility circuits five days a week, sometimes twice a day. In addition, Callahan and his staff provide coaching clinics and camps for the local youth football leagues.

"The most important thing that I can impart to these coaches is the importance of teaching the kids proper techniques, so they don't get hurt, and common terminology," said Callahan, who has been coaching at RHS since 1999.

"Common terminology is key for us, because once we get the kids to the varsity level we don't have to reinvent the wheel, and it makes the high school football learning process a lot smoother."

Callahan began his coaching career in 1981 as an assistant freshman coach at Notre Dame High School in Fairfield, then became the head coach at Bullard Regional Technical School in New Haven before returning to Notre Dame the following year.

He later served as an assistant at his alma mater, Central Connecticut State University before joining the staff at the University of New Haven, where he worked as an assistant under current Miami Dolphins head coach Tony Sparano.

In 1988, Sporano left to become the offensive line coach at Boston University, but Callahan stayed behind.

"My wife was pregnant with our second child, and joining Sparano would have initially required living in a college dormitory," Callahan recalled wistfully. "I did not think my wife would go for that."

When the Ridgefield head coaching position became available, Callahan jumped at the chance to get back into the high school ranks.

In some ways, last season was a bittersweet year for the Tigers. They had a hugely successful year at 9-1 but missed the state playoffs because they were in a brutally competitive class.

Even with such a good record, Ridgefield was ranked only sixth in the Class LL division. The playoff teams in Connecticut are chosen according to a complicated points formula. Only the top four teams in each of six divisions in the state qualified for the playoffs, and Ridgefield finished behind Staples (10-0), Glastonbury (9-1), Cheshire (9-1) and Xavier (9-1), the four postseason participants in Class LL.

To top it off, the team enters the 2010 fall season down 16 seniors, though a new playoff format may increase Callahan's chances of leading his young team to the playoffs.

Instead of 24 playoff teams—four in six divisions—32 teams now will qualify for postseason play. The CIAC eliminated two divisions but doubled the number of playoff teams in each of the current four classes to eight. If the new format was in place last year, no team in Connecticut with a record of at least 8-2 would have been left out.

Ridgefield will be led by 6-5, 300-pound offensive lineman Tommy Jordan, who has verbally committed to early enrollment at Florida, one of the top college football program in the country. Following his lead will be a host of freshmen—38 are participating in Callahan's summer workout regimen.

While the official NCAA early signing date does not begin until February 3, Jordan is on schedule to graduate from Ridgefield in December so he can participate in Florida's spring practice, and Callahan will once again be left with the job of training the next crop of superstar Tigers.