North and South meet in Sectionals this Friday. This will be the second time the conference foes met, with North winning the first meeting 25-24 in overtime. North is ranked #1 and South #3 in the state in 5A. North finished the regular season undefeated for the first time in school history. South’s only loss of the season was to North.
Both Scott Bless, BHSN Head Football Coach, and Gabe Johnson, BHSS Head Football Coach, have been working with their teams for months just to get to this point.
Coach Bless has been at BHSN for 19 years and has had different roles throughout his career, such as an assistant athletic director and teaches classes in the morning for athletic performance. However, he’s focused on how he is able to make an impact on the students and athletes he works with.
After teaching his classes, he’ll head out to the field for practice with the players which usually involves watching the film from the last game, running plays, and working on different techniques. Although there’s a lot for Coach Bless to manage because of all the players in the program, he still enjoys being able to coach here at North and wants to help these players become the best version of themselves through hard work and dedication.
Since he played the sport when he was in high school and throughout college, he understands the importance of working with each player separately to find out what can help motivate them to succeed. Bless said, “It’s a venue to show hard work and that that hard work can pay off and is a chance to show off their talents.” Bless has high expectations for the team this year and the players have responded.
At the same time, across town Coach Johnson of the Bloomington High School South football team is also getting ready for the big matchup. Going into his 10th season, he’s had plenty of experience as well. It’ll be the coach’s fourth year as the head coach for the Panthers, also working as the defensive coordinator, assistant athletic director, and English teacher before being given the opportunity to be the head coach.
Johnson has strong feelings on how his teams have been successful. Johnson said, “Consistency, our players know what exactly they’re getting in their coach and the assistant coaches. We’re not fancy in our drill, work or scheme. We have created a habit of doing the same things over and over again. Our goal is to be fundamentally sound, and disciplined. To me that only comes with great consistency at the top. Consistency in the way we practice, consistency in how we train and consistency in how
we deal with players.” He also played football when he was younger at a small school in Indiana that was pretty average, then went to college on a scholarship and played for a college in Indianapolis and has since then worked with many schools and before ending up at South.
Even after all these years, he hasn’t lost any interest in the sport even when it can be frustrating and stressful putting everything together for the Friday night games. Although they can be a lot of work, Johnson considers the games to be the best reward for the players; after all their dedication to work up to that moment and seeing the fans in the crowd get excited to watch their progress.
Overall, both coaches are very dedicated to their team and are always trying to motivate them to improve as the season progresses. Since each coach has their own way of accomplishing this it’s always interesting to see how they interact with the players in the program.
The sectional game between these two foes is at North on Friday at 7 pm.
