Get to Know: Catonsville Assistant Football Coach Warren Como

Although you probably know who he is, you’ll never mistake the sound of his voice. Comets assistant coach Warren Como has been bellowing directions and coaching up his guys since becoming Catonsville’s head coach in 1992.

While his title may have changed (Como opted to serve as an assistant starting in 2005), his attitude and demeanor certainly have not.

In Patch’s “Get to Know” feature, Como sits down to talk about the method to his madness and how it carries over to life outside football, his relationship with head coach Rich Hambor and the Catonsville coaching staff, his independence from technology and more.

Patch: What made you want to switch from having the head coach responsibilities to being an assistant coach?

Warren Como: Once my daughters entered high school, and they are soccer players, to go down to the Eastern Shore where they lived, the responsibility of being a head coach would be way too much for me. It was a decision made by the family. To see my family during the week had to be in the evenings or whenever they played, since once they got to high school their soccer games weren’t on the weekends anymore. My intent was really not to coach at all, but I walked in and said, Rich if you can’t find someone I can come back and help out and like anything else, as soon as you get into it, you get into it. You don’t just walk away from it.

Patch: Rather than step down fully, what made you want to come back? Did you have that itch you needed to scratch? 

Como: I didn’t step down because I didn’t want to leave everybody hanging. I know how important it is to have a number of people there at practice coaches-wise. I'd help if Rich couldn’t find anyone that was somewhat qualified who could be there within the school to handle things that happen during school time. I volunteered.

Patch: Was it difficult adjusting to not being the main voice as a head coach and all of a sudden being a secondary voice?

Como: No, I think I’m a very opinionated person whether I’m a head coach or a fan in the stands. I’ll make a statement, whether I’m the coach or not, on what I think is right or wrong. The harder change was the other coaches had to accept that I wasn’t the final voice. It was harder on Rich to convince the players that he’s the head coach and what I say is what he’s told me to say and not the other way around.

We’ve been working together so long that if you went down to practice when I was the head coach and watched what everyone was doing and then came back years later with Rich as head coach, you wouldn’t see anything different in the practice. The only thing different is at the end of the practice the last person to speak to the team is Rich, not me.

Patch: Do you think that you and Rich are a good fit for each other? He’s more laid back and you’re a pretty fiery guy. Do you think you guys play off each other well?

Como: I don’t know if I scare him or not. I know he gets mad at me a couple times. [Assistant coach] John Youngberg is the same way because they are more cerebral coaches during the game and I’m more of a reaction coach. If I see something on the field, I have to immediately address it, where as they might not address it until the end of the first half or a change of possession or a timeout.

That’s the difference between me and the other coaches, I try to address it right away. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it causes more problems. But, there’s never been an argument after the game saying we should have done this or you should have done that. We’ll come in and I say ‘I screwed up there’ or ‘you were right’. It’s not like an ego thing going on.

Patch: Describe your coaching style. From watching you on the sidelines I can tell the players on the field never have a tough time hearing you. You are a real passionate guy. Have you always been that way? Why are you that way?

Como: I never was a very loud person as a player. When I first started coaching at Woodlawn, [the other coaches] were very vocal coaches, always yapping to the referee and I was the quiet guy. I think what happened was, I watched how they got results by doing certain things. I think that’s where it started. Like I said, I’m the type of person where if I see something wrong, I’m going to fix it. I want it done now. If I see a missed block on a play, I let the guy know you had the gap, not the outside, so if we call that play again that mistake isn’t made.  

Patch: That passionate, intense, get it done right (and right now) style—are you like that in all walks of life?

Como: I am. If I’m going for a run, going to play golf, watch a football game—I’m doing it. I’m not just out there to go to a festival. When I do something, it’s everything to me right there.

Patch: Are you even intense during your home life? Say your daughter leaves a dirty dish in the sink…

Como: Fortunately for me, my daughters didn’t live with me for a long time. But yeah, when dinner is over, it’s clean up time. When it’s time to turn the TV off, it’s time to turn the TV off. That’s it.

Patch: What do you like best about coaching kids at this level?

Como: Seeing results. Every kid on the first day of practice thinks they know how to play football, but 95% don’t know how to play football … Once you see them getting it, them doing a drill and doing the drill right. Seeing the results. It’s like putting a song together and at the end it becomes a number one hit. It starts from scratch.

Patch: With how intense you are, you’ll go off on a player or at a situation and get a chuckle from your own players, do you notice that?

Como: I notice that because they thrive on that. They like seeing stuff like that. I tell the kids every year ‘I’m going to be really quiet this year’ and of course they all start laughing. I say don’t worry about how I say it. Don’t worry who I’m yelling at. Just listen to what I say. I’m not doing it because I don’t like you. If I don’t yell at you during the year that tells you I don’t like you. Getting yelled at means I like you, because I care about what you’re doing.

QUICK HITS

Full name: Warren Russell Como

Nicknames: I don’t have any clean ones

Age: 55

Family: Wife Danika Ford, son Jason (27), daughters Allison (22) Kelsey (18)

Years Coaching High School Sports: 35 (19 at Catonsville)

Hometown: Randallstown

Current town: Odenton, MD

High School: Randallstown HS

College: Towson University

Hobbies: I play as much golf as I can. Bicycling, jogging, just being outside.

Favorite Sports Team: Baltimore Colts

Favorite Athletes: Gale Sayers (former Chicago Bear)

Death Row Final Meal: Some type of Italian dish. Shrimp and vodka sauce over linguine.

Favorite Restaurant: I’ve got to give you a couple. Sabbatino’s for Italian, Cantler’s for seafood and we totally enjoy The Prime Rib.

Favorite Actor: Robert DeNiro

Favorite Movie: When I was younger the Wizard of Oz was always a fascination for me. I enjoyed the Star Wars movies when they first came out.

Favorite TV Show: I like a lot of reruns. Seinfeld, Married With Children, things like that.

Comedian Guaranteed to Make You Laugh: Steve Martin

Something People Would Be Surprised to Know About You: That I like the arts, museums, paintings, history. A lot of National Geographic, planets, the universe—that fascinates me.

Biggest Pet Peeve: The constant use of stupidity in education.

Biggest Football-Related Pet Peeve: The amount of emotion and energy that players spend before the game. It used to completely exacerbate me… I’ve seen games where we’ve lost because four of five of my best players were cramping up because they’ve completely expended themselves before the first kick off.

Piece of Technology You Can’t Live Without: I’m totally anti-technical. I have a cell phone for my family to get a hold of me. I don’t use the computer, never have never will. I don’t know how to turn one on. I don’t watch much TV. I would say anything that gets me from one place to the other, like a car, is something I have to have.