Hopewell Football
Matt Mottes Anxious but Prepared for his First Season as Hopewell Football Head Coach
A new era of football gets underway Friday night as Matt Mottes will run onto the sideline for the first time as the Hopewell Vikings head coach.
It’s not just his first game as Hopewell head coach, it will be the debut for Mottes as a high school head coach period. After years as serving as an assistant, the 39-year-old was named Hopewell head coach following John Rosa’s departure to Winchester Thurston to be athletic director.
So, it goes without saying that Friday night will be memorable for Coach Mottes.
On Wednesday before practice, Hopewell Sports Nation sat down with Coach Mottes in his office prior to practice to try and get a feel for what he’s personally feeling, along with other items prior to tomorrow’s opener vs. Riverside.
“Oddly enough, I never wanted to become a head coach,” said Mottes. “One of my stipulations to getting back into coaching with Coach Rosa about five years ago was that I couldn’t commit to coming every day (because of his job) and I didn’t want to be paid. That way, I could come when I could. Coach Rosa being the person he is, to guilt tripped me (laughing), after I was hired, he told me not only did I pay you, but I’m also going to give you $500 more because you’ll be breaking down film with me every Saturday morning.”
“When you learn from people, and you watch what actually goes into coaching. I knew how much our coaches back in high school prepared and the amount of time they put in. Being on Don Yannessa’s staff my first year, I didn’t even think about one day being a head coach. To be honest with you, this past May (laughing), I never thought I’d be a head coach, let alone the coach of a program that is right here in my backyard and I’m coaching people that I grew up with, kids. Which is pretty awesome.”
Mottes has other responsibilities aside from being a head coach, such as a full-time job and being a full-time husband and father. The preparation for this first season as been a learning experience, but Mottes is very excited even if he doesn’t want to visibly show it.
“We were here to 10:30 Sunday night preparing the game plan,” said Mottes. “As a coach, things are popping into my mind at all hours. The other night, literally, I woke up at 3 AM and had a thought of this is what we’re going to do, and this is who we’re going to put there. Literally, we struggled with some personnel and literally, it was as easy as we’re going to move Pip to outside linebacker, which is going to solve that problem.”
“In terms of the excitement, you can’t let the kids know that you’re too excited or too anxious. Even though I’ve never done it before, one thing I always tell the kids is pretend like you’ve done it before. So, I have to pretend and act like I’ve done it before.”
Ok, Mottes doesn’t want to let his players know how excited he is, how about his wife?
“(Laughing) No, I also have my poker face with her too. You’re talking to a guy that didn’t smile for any of my wedding pictures.”
Things have changed a bit in terms of practice for the team. The camp portion is over with and for the rest of the season, it’s game week and preparing 100% for that week’s opponents.
Now that two-a-days and training camp are over, Mottes didn’t hesitate when I asked him what was the most difficult thing that he had to deal with/adjust to now that he’s the coach.
“Organizing everything, Organizing is the hardest part,” said Mottes. “Making sure we’re on the field at a certain time, we’re sharing the field with soccer. I have to let boosters know what time dinner is going to be there, the kids getting ready, getting our work done as coaches’ in-between practices. You think there’s a lot of time in between practices, an hour or hour and a half, that’s not a lot of time at all. As soon as you sit-down, it’s time to go back out again.”
Adversity happens to every coach, every season, no matter the sport. Mottes hasn’t even coached his first game yet and his program was hit with some devasting news. A week ago today, 2-year starting quarterback and team leader Kingston Krotec suffered a broken ankle in practice and will miss the entire season.
This is terrible news for Krotec and the Vikings program, but Mottes is trying to find a silver ling regarding the situation.
“It still bugs me, a lot. However, even though he’s not playing, Kingston is still going to be a leader on this team. He was voted captain by his teammates. He’s a seasoned veteran, he’s been in battles, he got abused on the field for two years, had to run for his life but he always was tough and stuck it out. We were really looking forward to him playing this year and what he could bring both offensively and defensively to the team.”
“Now we see a new Kingston, we have the Kingston that’s trying to mentor Boo Boo,” said Mottes. “It went from a competition to a mentorship and he’s doing his best to help him, talking to him. I’ll tell you one thing that stood out to me, when all the kids were voting for who they wanted to be their captain, James voted for Kingston, even though at the time they were competing for a position. That tells me a lot about what Kingston is doing to help him and also what Boo Boo’s personality is. To me as a coach, that’s great.”
As kickoff is nearly 24 hours away, Hopewell will go through a team walk-through tonight before they take the field for the first time Friday night at 7 PM.
I’m guessing that both the pregame speech and run out onto the field at Tony Dorsett Stadium will be filled with emotion for everyone involved, especially the first-time head coach.
“Everything will be off the cuff. Whatever my heart feels at the time, that’s what will come out,” said Mottes. “It depends on how we practice the next two days, depends on what their mood is, do they need a hug or do they need a kick in the rear end. Do they need motivated or are they just need reassured. This is what I can tell you, our kids are 1000% ready to compete and they’re ready to win. Now, I’m not saying that we’re going to win every game but the work that they’ve put in and the way that they’ve been preparing, I think they’re ready to do what’s necessary to take the next step in this program.”
“My parents are more excited to come see me coach than they were to watch me play. It’s really great.”