When Plant High School recently won its second state 4-A championship in three years, it was a victory for more than football excellence. It was a triumph for everyone who still believes that nice guys can finish first. That “winning” moves on multiple levels.
Before the 2008 season I sat down with Plant head coach Robert Weiner and talked football – and English literature. He teaches both at Plant. In fact, he’d sooner quote Rudyard Kipling than Knute Rockne. And if Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” comes up, he’ll likely break it down like an Armwood game film.
Players who have taken his classes have spread the word that he means business outside as well as inside the white lines. Plant football players have to check in with Weiner (who arrives at 5:30 a.m.) each morning before school starts. Result: the team’s grade point average was a county-best 3.28 last year. It was 2.48 when he arrived in 2004.)
In 2003 the Panthers won all of one game. This year they were ranked 8th in the NATION by USA Today.
Weiner, 44, will be the first to tell you he has talent and the luxury of working with a staff of 21 on-field coaches – including volunteers, some with professional experience – and two academic coaches. He also enjoys a rabid, small-townesque following that is the closely-knit South Tampa community.
What others will tell you is that he had to build the sort of program that would be in position to be a catalyst for such scenarios. He turned the Weinermobile into a band wagon. He did it initially by roaming the corridors to find “meaningful” players – those with character as well as ability. And he did it by establishing a mantra that never deviated from organization, preparation, discipline and camaraderie.
And since the Panthers have gone from Friday Night Lightweights to state and national powerhouse, they now get their share of quality transfers. It’s not “recruiting,” Weiner underscores. It’s more like magnetism. As a result, good begets better.
But for all the winning and all the blue-chip players that are coming through his program, Weiner is even prouder of other accomplishments. He teaches that helping the less fortunate is more than a nice gesture. It’s a social imperative.
Each summer he works as a counselor at a Muscular Dystrophy camp. And he brings several dozen Plant players with him.
Each Saturday morning during football season, his players report to Dad’s Stadium for “Panther Pride Challenger Football.” Those who may have shone brightest the night before now help disabled kids – some in wheel chairs – to feel special in their own “adaptive” games. There’s an announcer; the kids wear sponsor jerseys; and the fog machine is cranked.
“I want our players to know what a privilege it is to run through those goal posts in front of thousands of people,” says Weiner. “There are less fortunate kids who would give anything to be able to do that – or, in some cases, to do just one push-up.”
Keeping everything in perspective yields a definition of “success” that, to Weiner, transcends any game – no matter the stakes, no matter how well played.
“The years will tell more than the short term, because football is a vehicle to teach kids how to be real men in the real world,” says Weiner. “To be outstanding fathers and contributing members of the community.”
Inevitably the term “father figure” is affixed to coaches such as Weiner. The bond with impressionable youth is unique and often life-lasting. He prefers “brother figure.”
“I’m not there to replace a father,” explains Weiner. “But a coach has a unique perspective. We see them at their best and their worst. I’ve been to funerals and weddings; to jail houses and hospitals. Whichever it is, we’re there.”
And it was reciprocated last January. While Weiner was in California for a coaches’ convention, a number of players and parents gave his South Tampa house a customized Extreme Home Makeover: paint, sod, a power-washed driveway and some designer touches for favorite photos.
“It was an outpouring of love,” recalls Weiner. “It was the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.”
It was well-earned Panther payback, says Gayle Sierens, the parent of two sons who have played for Weiner – one of whom was in on the Makeover.
“The boys always know where they stand,” points out the Channel 8 co-anchor and former sportscaster. “They may be the star, or they may be low man on the depth chart, but they know Coach is there for them no matter their stature on the team. When you get that many kids buying into a program…knowing that they matter no matter what, it breeds success. The boys love and respect him.
“Now that my boys are away at college, they realize they will never pass this way again,” reflects Sierens. “The closeness and unity that was created at Plant will never be recreated in their life again. They realize they were part of something very, very special.”
Indeed, “Teams are more than the sum of their parts,” says Weiner, who preaches the importance of players caring about each other as a byproduct of team play.
Or as Kipling once noted: “For the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack.”
And, yes, Plant expects to be very good again next year.