Building a program from scratch isn't easy.
It takes time, resources, and the right coach who is willing to make the sacrifices needed to turn a team with little to no success around.
Coach of the Week Colin Leach possesses the qualities it takes to be a leader, and he has gotten his students at William Tennent to buy into his message.
Leach began his coaching journey during college, taking a position coach job at his alma mater, Bishop McDevitt. After working his way up through the ranks, while looking to be a guidance counselor, Leach wound up at William Tennent, located in Warminster, PA, as he continued on his goal of helping students.
"The real story for me is just the fact that I continued my growth through helping kids inside the classroom and outside," Leach said. "I don't consider myself an old ball coach, not a big screamer or yeller. I try to teach the game, I try to teach the "why", I teach those strategies that we're going to use as life lessons from inside the school as a middle school counselor all the way until adulthood. I try to do that with my team at William Tennent."
While William Tennent hasn't had a winning season since 2006, Coach Leach has this program moving in the right direction.
In his first season as head coach, Leach led the team to more wins than they had in the previous two seasons combined.
"It wasn't easy, I'm not going to lie," Leach said. "It took a lot of extra time in the offseason, getting them to buy in on my philosophy and how I do things."
That philosophy Leach preaches to his players is about family. The team breaks down every huddle by saying, "Family on me, family on three," since the day Leach took over as coach.
"A lot of times we see our team and our coaches more than we see our own family. If we can't come together as a family and as a group and realize that there's going to be disagreements, there's going to be things we need to improve on and get better with and communicate, then there can't be success," Leach said. "That was one of the things I wanted to instill from the beginning is that family mentality, that family style of play where I always have my brothers' back on the field."
When Leach took over at William Tennent, there were 26 athletes on the football roster.
But as his message got out and the players began to buy in, the team quickly grew.
In August of 2023, right before his first camp with the team, there were 59 players on the team. Now, this season there are 78 athletes on the football team.
"One of the things that really shocked me was over the spring and into the summer of my first year where you started to see a changeover in buying into practices, buying into the lifts into the offseason," Leach said.
As a team building from the ground up, it's about the little things.
"One of the real important things for us from the beginning was finding those little successes, whether that was in the weight room, finding some personal records, all those little wins, then carried into the next step," Leach said. "For us, those are the wins we needed. We needed to get those little wins in so we could come together as a team to start winning during the season."
On his mission to turn the William Tennent football program around, Leach is including everybody.
Along with the help and foundation laid by Athletic Director John Creighton, Leach helps students with special needs and lets them be active participants on the team.
"Just because a student has a disability or special needs, it doesn't mean they should not be included. They have every right to be included and to participate," Leach said. "The team, the players, notice it as well and they're amazing with the students with disabilities and special needs. They take them under their wing, they teach them different things. The family mindset comes out pretty heavily in that section of what we do as a team."
With William Tennent's 2024 season coming to an end already, Leach had a chance to reflect on being named the Coach of the Week, and what the school means to him.
"This recognition is unbelievable. I am so honored to have this recognition and it's a testament to the staff, the team, the community, and to everyone that is a part of William Tennent football or the Centennial School District that we are looking to put William Tennent on the map," Leach said. "I think this is a big step in that. What I want everyone to know about William Tennent is we are a hard-nosed, hard-fighting football team that is going to come together in every situation and have each other's backs."
– Written by Liam Wichser
