Becoming the head football coach at Mill Creek High School after years of being at the school and involved in the community has affected the school and the players he coaches. When asking Josh Lovelady what his core values were as a coach he said, “ What I envision for the game of football, being the head football coach and Mill Creek is, I want to invest into our young players, especially right now that are young. Even young boys as ninth graders, to be young men as seniors and to empower them with tools to be men of character in the future.”
Asking Coach Lovelady how he feels the team specifically makes the school a community he said, “People wanting to be involved. The band and cheerleaders and football players say it’s awesome. I want to be part of that process. I want to be part of that event. It’s cool. And then other people want to come to that event to watch these people perform whether in a cheer or band or being involved in football and also feel as far as making the team into a community or family.”
Becoming a head coach after being an assistant coach has changed his perspective and relationship with the players Coach Lovelady stated, “So it’s about relationship building. The depth of it is less at the head coach because you’re spread so thin. There’s only so many hours in the day. That’s probably a negative but that’s a result of being a head coach where you have every 150 players that you have to worry about. You can’t or it’s hard to dive into every individual at the depth that I used to do as assistant coach, and I only have 20 guys where I could go into more depth with him as far as relationship building. But I still think you can build relationships with underage kids. It’s just tougher.”
Now that Coach Lovelady has experienced a state championship, his victory didn’t change his coaching, “You know, 30 years is where, you know, some people most people retire. If I would have not won a state championship, which a lot of people don’t, there’s nobody on our staff that had played hadn’t won a state championship, or the 17 coaches. No one had won one. So it was special for them. Yes they can sit there and say that’s a cool accomplishment, but it doesn’t define them as far as it still doesn’t define them. Meaning like I’ve reached that I’ve reached a goal, the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal goes back to Hey, why are you doing this? It’s to sit there and pour in young people. You don’t have to have a state championship to say that you’ve done that and achieved those goals if that makes sense, and pointing to making young men into men of character.”
When asking Coach Lovelady how he stays in the same mindset he said, “Number one, I surround myself with good people that share my core values, and I poured into kids. How you treat the bottom half. What I mean by that is kids that maybe you’re not the most talented. maybe they’re not the biggest, strongest, whatever it is. But you still treat them the right way because they still benefit from football matters. If they play 100 snaps in the game, or they play just watching the sideline. They’re still important. How do I keep going is having those guys that will whenever I’m having a rough day, having a team philosophy even with a staff of assistant coaches that will just like I said, you know, the expectation is that there’s a piece of trash in there. You’ll pick it up.”
When it comes to football Coach Lovelady has had big wins. When it comes down to it he also values players development, and the community’s support for the game. Winning the state championship was an accomplishment, but not the end for Coach Lovelady.
