Mike Zdebski knows the best way to build a program. You’ve got to market, promote, and pile on the car mileage.
When he got hired in February to take over a 1-9 Surprise Shadow Ridge football team, he was quickly won over by the area, the facilities, the administration, the district, the parents, the potential growth.
So, he’s now taking the 202 freeway to the 10 to the 303 every morning on his way from his Chandler home to Surprise to dig into what he sees as a potential gold mine. He says it’s worth the 120-mile roundtrip drive for the former Chandler Hamilton head football coach.
A Hall of Fame high school coach in Michigan, Zdebski was given the task of trying to pull Hamilton out of an era marred by a hazing scandal,. The Huskies had been the best Arizona high school football program in the early 2000s, but it hit rock bottom after the hazing allegations became public.
In his first season in 2018, the Huskies went 3-7 and failed to make the state playoffs for the first time in school history. But he started working to get players in the weight room and on the track, committed to getting stronger and faster.
Discipline and commitment installed, he saw Brenden Rice go from running his first 100 meters in about 12 seconds to finishing third at 10.79 his junior year in the Division I state track and field championships. Rice now is with the NFL Los Angeles Chargers as a wide receiver.
Zdebski led the rebirth of elite Hamilton football to five consecutive Open Division state playoff appearance, reaching the final in 2020, before leaving at the end of last season. His last game at Hamilton, his Huskies pushed eventual state champion Peoria Liberty in the first round, taking a lead in the final quarter, before the Lions finally overpowered them.
New Shadow Ridge football coach Mike Zdebski brought Camden Lamar Brown (No….
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/coach-mike-zdebski-sees-great-120147680.html
Author : AZCentral | The Arizona Republic
Publish date : 2024-08-09 12:01:47
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