Talking Football with Coach Erik Westberg, head coach of the Northern Guilford Nighthawks:Check out our Video Interview with Coach Westberg from after practice on Tuesday morning

We caught up with Coach Erik Westberg, the head football coach of the Northern Guilford Nighthawks this afternoon, and got Coach Westberg to dig in on our 7 on 7 questions, for the upcoming 2019 high school football season…Coach Westberg was walking his dog around the Guilford College Quaker campus, after a hard week of high school football practice, and we got the chance to pick his brain about high school football and his Northern Guilford Nighthawks…

Our Seven-on-Seven Series of questions for Coach Westberg(Northern Guilford HS):

1)For your program to reach the playoffs, what will your record need to be this season?
Coach Westberg: We were (8-4) overall last season and we need to keep building upon that…(8-3) for the regular season is the starting point and then hoping to move forward and build on that season that we put together last year.

2)Who will be your team leaders on Offense, Defense, and Special Teams?
Coach Westberg: Offense we have WR Michael Frogge(Wake Forest-commit), WR Chuck Conaway, OL Ethan Ryan, QB Will Lenard; Defense goes with LB Tyler Anderson, DB DJ Anderson, the Andersons, like Ole and Arn, are not related….DE Jacob Barlow and DE Trey Ruff…Special Teams feature (K) Slater Ward, (P) Michael Becker, KR’s Rakeem Murchinson and Asa McMillian, plus Punt Return man Brady Mercer….

3)What do remember about about your football practice days, back when you were playing high school football?
Coach Westberg:Being out there in the Summer heat, when we were playing high school football in upstate New York…Really remember the camaraderie…Building friendships that last for a lifetime…

4)Why do you love coaching football?
Coach Westberg: Really, it’s all about helping kids…Seeing those little freshmen develop into young men…Then keeping in touch with our former players, when they go off to college…I text some of those kids every day, and really like to keep up with them, and now have a lot of former players that are in college football camps somewhere on the college football map…They have arrived, I feel like we helped them get there, and we like to follow their progress…And that goes for the ones that are still playing and the ones that are going to college as, “students-only”, and not just the student-athletes….

5)If you weren’t coaching football, what would you be doing?
Coach Westberg: Coaching basketball or baseball….This all that my family knows, my dad was a coach, my grandfather was a coach….Our family tree is full of coaches….Coaching is, “All in the Family”…..

6)Best team in the county other than your Northern Guilford Nighthawks?
Coach Westberg: Dudley at the top, then Southeast Guilford, Grimsley, Page and Ragsdale….They all look strong to me, and we have to face Grimsley, Page and Ragsdale….

7)What’s the first thing you do in practice each day?
Coach Westberg: We start out with the Flex Groups…Before we hit the Flex, we have a quick meeting to go over everything we hope to cover on that give day in practice, and from the Flex Groups, we do our Special Teams work and key in on our Specialty Periods….
(Andy’s take:My theory on this might be to get those Special Teams worked on early in practice while the guys are still highly focused and if you, or we, wait too late in practice and do our Special Teams at the end of practice, we might get a bunch of kids that are running down and going through the motions…And then, that might have to lead to some extra running, even before the end of practice…Get your Special Teams done early in practice when the minds and bodies are still fresh.)
+++++One of the keys is, “You have to remember what you are doing, and why you are doing it”, during your practice sessions….

**********We thank Coach Erik Westberg for his time today, and plan on getting by to see him next week at Northern Guilford High School, for a visit with our video camera…When you least expect it, your selected and action’s on the way, Smile, your on Andy’s Camera(Kodak/not Kodiak)….**********

For our video interview with Coach Westberg, Click On Below….Caught up with the Nighthawks’ coach, just after practice on Tuesday morning…

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