By Vincent PAGE

On a recent scorching day, the Crescenta Valley High School Falcons varsity football team was found on its practice field, honing their craft. On this particular day, they finished practice with a dreadful combination of conditioning drills. Three stations, each more strenuous than the last. The mastermind behind each of these stations? Defensive coordinator Dennis Gossard. After five decades of coaching, Gossard’s training incorporates the different eras of football with each station these players run through.

“Conditioning is not all about making sure the players are in shape. Obviously that’s the end goal, but when it’s hot and you’re tired and you want to go home, it’s mental toughness that truly shows during conditioning,” Gossard explained.

First up, flipping tires – a workout that has been in use for as long as Gossard has been involved in football (north of 60 years). In his high school days, Gossard played the role of a modern day Wildcat, leading the offense as the team’s primary passer and rusher. He did not spend much time on the sidelines, but even back then as a high schooler he knew that’s where his future was going to be.

“I knew exactly what I wanted to do as soon as I got to high school,” he said. “I loved my coaches there … and I started coaching as soon as I graduated.”

Gossard started coaching at Monte Vista Elementary (back then all grammar schools had after-school sports) as the baseball, football, basketball and track and field coach. He remembered one of his greatest victories against Dunsmore Elementary basketball. After two seasons without any losses, Dunsmore fell to Gossard’s Monte Vista team, a moment the coach called “one of my most thrilling victories still to this day.” It was in that moment Gossard knew his calling in life was coaching.

The second station of conditioning was pushing sleds. Stacked high with weights on them, players learn to quickly get low to the ground; otherwise, the sled wins. Not quite as time-tested as flipping tires, but a traditional workout nonetheless.

After Gossard showed his coaching prowess on the elementary level, he rejoined Crescenta Valley High School’s coaching staff. The head coach at the time, Gordan Warnock, brought Gossard onto the staff. The effect Warnock had on this young coach would last a lifetime.

“Gordy and I coached together for 40 years. Gordy hired me, then I hired him later on, then we both ended up back at CV. We were together a lot of years. He was a great man, a gentleman. Yin and Yang. He was the good guy, I was the bad guy,” Gossard explained. “Gordy lived a great life, a full life.”

While Warnock was a coach who was quiet in his approach to the game, Gossard was not afraid to bring down the hammer.

As years went on, Gossard served as the offensive coordinator. At the turn of the century, his son Hudson was entering his junior year of high school. As a quarterback, he and his father would be working side-by-side. After winning a competition against a senior signal caller, Hudson looked shaky in his first scrimmage. Questions and accusations of “the coach’s son” started to be raised. However, Gossard said he saw something in his son’s eyes.

In their first game against Thousand Oaks High School, with a future Division 1 quarterback on the other sidelines, Gossard said his son had “eyes of steel, and from that time on, he set every school passing record.”

Over the years, reading a player’s eyes has become a secret weapon for Gossard. He uses it to sense whether a player knows what is going on when they’re practicing, if they have the grit to play defense, and if they have the mental toughness to play at a high level for four quarters.

The third conditioning station is a series of core workouts with Head Coach Paul Schilling. These workouts have been implemented more often in high school sports, and are a great way to test a player’s limits.

While the workouts become more exact, so does Gossard’s weekly schedule. CVHS does not boast many players who go on to play Division 1 football, and in the school’s history have only had three players make it to the NFL. Yet, the Falcons still win games. This begins with Coach Gossard.

“I’m retired. I don’t golf, I don’t hike. These other coaches have jobs and families to look after,” he said. “Outside of my wife, family and dog, there’s nothing I love more than coaching these boys.”

Gossard’s hobby is watching film. It is not unusual for film of a game to be up on performance anaylsis website Hudl by the time the team bus arrives back at CVHS. In preparing for a game, Gossard knows no other coaches can watch as much film as he, because they simply do not have the time. He recognized this advantage, and has made a point of using it. In fact, this upcoming season, the Falcons are aiming to do something they have only done twice in history: They are looking to win the Pacific League for the second consecutive year.

Gossard realizes he could not have gotten where he is today solo. He thinks another coach is the most vital asset for the Falcons.

“To me, this is so critical that everybody knows it. Our head coach is such a tremendous head coach. I can’t say enough about Paul Schilling. He makes our jobs easy, and there are not enough good things to say about him,” Gossard said.

However, his highest praise goes to someone who has never played a down of football.

“You don’t coach for over 50 years without having the best wife in the history of coaching,” he said. “Jeri has been as supportive as anyone could ever be.”

After practice, Gossard can be seen on the benches while his players clean up the equipment on the field and head to the locker room. Gossard observes while flossing his teeth on the bench. Attention to detail has always been his strength, in football and his life.

  Vincent PAGE