By Tom Nader

Publisher and Editor

Southeast football coach Patrick Youel will find himself in a tough situation on Friday.

As the leader of his Pirates, he wants nothing more than to notch his second win of the season in as many weeks.

“I love to win,” Youel said.

Youel, though, is one of the special coaches that also knows that football is never solely about the wins and the losses.

Which is why his heart will be moving in two different directions on Friday, when his opponent is also his mentor.

Field football head coach Matt Furino.

Who is also one of his best friends.

Who is one of the six men Youel lists as men that have made the biggest impact on his life.

“Matt helped hire me at Field, and I was his offensive coordinator for three years,” Youel said. “He was in my wedding. There is no doubt in my mind that I am not where I am today without him. He is a special, special man in my life, and he means a lot to me.”

When Furino stepped down as head coach of the Falcons after a 9-1 season in 2007, he was the one that felt Youel was the one ready to take his spot. He went to bat for a young, 27-year-old offensive coordinator to be the Falcons’ next head coach.

Athletic director Craig Nettleton made the hire and Youel posted a 28-15 record and made three playoff appearances in four years as the Falcons’ leader.

Now mentor meets protege once again.

In times like these, and others heavier in adversity, Youel and his Pirates will maintain focus the same way they always do: OTOV.

An acronym that stands for “One Team, One Vision.”

It is a philosophy that was born from Youel’s days at Field when he created a “Two Communities, One Team” motto for the Field District that pulls from both Brimfield and Suffield townships.

Over time, the motto evolved and has now been OTOV for a long time.

“The whole thing has just become a thing of its own,” Youel said. “I can’t say that when I started it with the first team that I knew then that it would stick around for as long as it has. But the more we used it, the more I think it shaped how I live my life and it became who I am and what I stand for.

“For our team, it gives them something tangible to see and to show what our culture is,” Youel added. “It shows them what we are every day. What we do every day. I know that some of them will not fully understand the impact of what OTOV means now, but they will when they get older and it will all resonate with them.”

There are five main characteristics that outline what OTOV stands for:

1. Total accountability
2. Uncommon care
3. Relentless effort
4. Highest integrity
5. Mutual trust

Youel’s team mission statement provides an even deeper understanding:

    To give you a first-class experience that will be one of the greatest of your life, to create lifelong relationships and to maximize every one of your abilities, while graduating you are to live your life with mutual trust, total accountability, highest integrity, uncommon care and relentless effort so that you may go on to be the hardest working, most loyal and most unselfish men, citizens, fathers and husbands in the world.

Youel still loves the grind of a football season and the challenges that come with winning, but the result of OTOV has been the 13-year head coach finding even more joy in events his players do after the Friday Night Lights are gone.

“I have learned that one of the greatest things about this job is when former players connect back with you. When they invite you to their wedding or when you see them start their family. That is far more special than winning football games.

“People are the reason you get to do anything,” Youel added.

For Youel, the people closest to him, that have made the most influential impact on his life, have given him the reason to find a passionate career path that he loves.

“My mom, Rita and my wife Nikki, are the two special and beautiful women in my life,” Youel said. “And there are six male figures that have shaped my life for me, my former football head coach Steve Warden, Matt Furino, Mike Harris, Craig Nettleton, Steve Sigworth and Bob Dunn. Without those people in my life, there is no way I would be where I am today.”

Youel’s playing days are over, but in a sense, that group acts, in a sense, as his team.

One team with one vision.

And Youel would run onto that group any day of the week.

Before they did, though, they would huddle up and break it out:

O-T!

O-V!

The echo would ring throughout the growing number of “OTOV Dudes” who are now forever connected.