By Jack D’Amato

Special Contribution to Portage Sports

Every coach has been inspired by someone along the way.

The “Coach Who Inspired Me” series celebrates the stories and people who influenced today’s high-school coaches in Portage County.

Today, Crestwood football coach Jack D’Amato tells his story about the coach who made the biggest impact on him.

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On Aug. 28, 2020, before my first game as a head football coach, I got a text from my high school football coach, Rob Atwood.

It said: “Good luck tonight! Go Devils! You are ready for this!!!”

Streetsboro football coach Rob Atwood

It had been 17 years since I last played for coach Rob Atwood at Streetsboro, but there he was, still believing in me and wanting to see me succeed.

That’s the kind of coach he was, and that’s why he’s had such an impact on my life.

I always knew I wanted to be a football coach.

Even when I was a kid playing football, I loved coaches.

I loved watching them, following their careers and seeing how they ran their programs.

But Coach Atwood was the one who really solidified that I wanted to be a coach someday.

I played for him at Streetsboro from 2001 through 2003, and when I look back on those years, the things I remember most aren’t necessarily the games or the wins and losses.

It’s the relationships he built, the coaches he surrounded himself with and how much he cared about us.

Coach Atwood was a teacher.

That’s probably the best way I can describe him.

He held us to high standards and pushed us to be better, but he also believed in us.

He talked to us like people and wanted to see us succeed — not just as football players, but as boys growing into men.

He and his staff taught us things that went well beyond football.

They were helping us learn how to become husbands and fathers someday, whether we realized it at the time or not.

One thing that has always stuck with me was how Coach Atwood balanced football and his family.

I remember Mrs. Atwood being around at practices, and I remember their kids, Troy, Emily and Jack, being around the program.

As a high-school kid, you probably don’t think much about something like that.

But now that I’m a dad and a head football coach myself, I appreciate it a lot more.

Football takes up a tremendous amount of time, and he showed me that you could be committed to coaching and still make your family part of that experience.

I see that now with my own daughter, Laila.

She loves football and has been a big part of our program at Crestwood.

She has her own Hudl account where she watches film, and she’s become one of our biggest recruiters, encouraging kids in the hallways to come out for the team.

But my favorite part of Friday nights is actually after the game.

When the band is playing the Alma Mater, Laila breaks away from the rest of the cheerleaders for a couple of minutes, and I get to have her right there by my side.

We talk about the game, how she performed and what she thought of how our team played. Those 2 minutes mean more to me than she probably realizes.

When I think back to Coach Atwood having his family around the program, I understand now how special those moments are.

It’s something I’m grateful I get to experience with my own daughter.

Coach Atwood was an All-American and national champion at Mount Union, playing on their first national championship team in 1993.

He knew football and had accomplished a lot as a player, but one of the things I respected most was the way he trusted his assistant coaches.

He didn’t feel like he had to make every decision or control everything.

He surrounded himself with good coaches, gave them ownership and let them coach. That’s something I try to do with my own staff at Crestwood.

I want my assistants to have the freedom and confidence to do their jobs because I saw first-hand what that could look like when I played for Coach Atwood.

And he put together a coaching staff that had a huge impact on me.

I remember our defensive coordinator, Coach Collins, working third shift at Ford during the summer and fall so he could coach football.

We’d show up for two-a-days, and he would be just getting off work. Sometimes he’d take a quick nap on the couch in the football office. But when it was time to practice, he was ready to go, working hard and pushing us to get better.

That’s something you don’t forget.

Coach Atwood, Coach Collins, Coach Budd and Coach Smith all had an impact on my life.

I learned something from each of them, and I think it says a lot about Coach Atwood that he brought those kinds of people together.

When I was getting ready for my first season as a head coach in 2020, I reached out to all four of those coaches for advice.

Some of them I hadn’t seen in years, but they were the guys I wanted to talk to before taking that step in my career.

I don’t remember Coach Atwood’s exact words, but the message I took from him was to be myself, trust my assistants and have fun. That advice has stayed with me.

Coaching is supposed to be something you love doing, and I think sometimes we can lose sight of that with everything that comes with being a head coach.

Coach Atwood has continued to support me throughout my coaching career.

Besides the text before my first game in 2020, he reached out when we made the playoffs in 2021.

He congratulated me and told me to enjoy every second of it.

He’s even been to a few of my games at Crestwood.

We talked briefly, and I don’t remember exactly what was said, but I remember that he was there. It means a lot when someone who helped shape the coach you wanted to become takes the time to come watch you coach.

I think you appreciate your coaches differently as you get older.

When you’re a player, you know they’re pushing you and trying to help you get better.

But when you become a coach yourself, you start to understand everything that goes into it.

You understand the time, the sacrifices, the relationships and the responsibility that comes with coaching young men.

Coach Atwood showed me that being a good coach is about more than knowing football.

It’s about surrounding yourself with good people, believing in your players, holding them to high standards and helping them become better people.

Those are all things I try to carry into what we do at Crestwood.

If I could tell Coach Atwood anything, it would simply be, “Thank you.”

Thank you for believing in me, for pushing me to be better and for showing me what it means to be a good coach and a good father. I hope the players I coach someday look back on their time with me the same way I look back on my time playing for him.