- 6 months ago
Join Finn Macdiarmid with a roundup of Kent's sporting action.
On today's episode we meet the father and son duo of South East Legion U19's American Football Team, one is a coach for the team, and the other is their quarterback. The team are based in Maidstone and are preparing for their nationals finals match after winning their league without a loss.
On today's episode we meet the father and son duo of South East Legion U19's American Football Team, one is a coach for the team, and the other is their quarterback. The team are based in Maidstone and are preparing for their nationals finals match after winning their league without a loss.
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TVTranscript
00:00Hello and welcome once again to Invicta Sport. That's right, the only show on your TV dedicated
00:17to Kent's sporting action. We're switching things up and going back to some of those
00:21classic longer interviews with some of Kent's sporting stars. And today we're bringing you
00:26an interview with David and Nate Green. They're the father and son duo who are also the offensive
00:31coach and quarterback for the South East Legion American football team. They're based in Maidstone
00:36and the team have won not just one, not just two, but in fact all of their games in the
00:41season. Well, we hope you enjoy this chat to find out more about their success.
00:46Well thank you both so much for joining me and I think my first question really is going
00:51to start with you Dave. Can you talk us through your own introduction to the sport? When did
00:54you first start getting involved with American football? So I grew up in the 1980s and was
01:03watching American football back then and playing at that point as well, just with local teams
01:09in Tunbridge and then Maidstone. And from there I guess as I grew up I didn't get quite as big
01:16as some of the other guys so I started coaching and then spent some time coaching in Maidstone
01:22and then further afield in Farnham and with Great Britain. But that sort of for me ended
01:29in my early twenties when I then started really sort of on my journey of faith and so becoming
01:35a vicar obviously Sundays made it a bit difficult to continue so at that point I stepped away
01:40from the game for a while. I see and out of curiosity what position did you play when you
01:45were a player? I was a wide receiver when I played so yeah I suppose I had a good pair
01:52of hands, could catch and not the quickest but also not the slowest either so my job was
01:58on the outside catching and hopefully running for touchdowns. I see and Nate, tell me a bit
02:03about your start to the story. I'm guessing your dad might have been involved in getting
02:07you into the sport. Talk us through that. Yeah so I was reluctant for most of my kind
02:15of child life really to American football. I played rugby for about four or five years
02:22at school and then for a variety of reasons didn't want to play anymore so I decided I was
02:29going to give another sport a try. At the time my dad was on his sabbatical and was able
02:38to take me down to the local American football club because it was a kind of sport I wanted
02:42to try and I followed in my father's footsteps a little bit. So went down, tried very quickly
02:50ended up kind of playing in tournaments and stuff like that and yeah I've been playing since
02:54really. I see and Nate what struck you as maybe a bit challenging or difficult when you first
02:59started that you might not have expected? It's a very, the kind of, one of the really
03:08funny things about American football is it's a very kind of cerebral sport and when you first
03:15come into it there's so many kind of things to know. So whereas you know on a rugby pitch
03:22it was basically you know get a ball run and then you're doing half your job pretty well.
03:26It's kind of American football it's okay so you do this here, this here, we need you to
03:30play this and if they do this. So I can kind of remember after about kind of two weeks of
03:36training we had our first tournament and I was completely lost. I had absolutely you know
03:40had these people in front of me for the first time actually playing and I had no clue what
03:44was going on. It's such a kind of the game has to slow down for you and until it does it's it
03:51feels super fast-paced and you can't really tell what's going on half the time.
03:55I see and is that especially the case for you considering you play as the quarterback so a lot
03:59of the a lot of the plays almost start with you. So is it in your head like you have a set series of
04:04plays you do you have to run through and make the decisions of okay what play are we going to run and
04:08how much is that split with the coach in terms of what decide what play to make?
04:13So it's probably 80-20 with the 80 being the coach. So I get hand signals from the
04:21sideline basically telling me what play to run and then I go into the huddle I tell
04:28the guys what we're going to do and then we line it up. If I don't like what's being
04:32called if I'm seeing it and I'm going I'm not sure this is going to work I can change it. We have a bunch of words.
04:37We have a bunch of words that I can say that basically change the play to something else.
04:43Um but yeah I mean kind of at I didn't start a quarterback so I played um I played a year at
04:50uh corner uh so defensive back and then I played a year at linebacker um and then each time I kind
04:56of swapped positions and I came back to QB um it was yeah kind of the game has to re-slow down for you
05:05especially quarterback because there's so much that you're expected to be reading and learning.
05:10Um you kind of it's really tough to process all that information especially um when you're starting
05:19off at the position and suddenly there's kind of a D-line rushing you and you need to make decisions
05:23about where to go with the ball. Absolutely and when your coach is giving you an instruction you have
05:28to say well actually I think we should run this play. Is that ever difficult especially when it
05:32might be your dad as the offensive coordinator? I'd say it's probably easier because I'm I'm used to um
05:40well I wouldn't say arguing but um we've we've you know I I know him very well. I know that he trusts me
05:48um in that sense because we do so much for our prep together um so in that sense it's kind of
05:57it's pretty it's pretty easy you have to have confidence in what you're doing I mean you're
06:00always going to need that um and occasionally you might kind of you make a call and then you go
06:05oh I shouldn't have done that I'll think about that next time I'm in that situation I'll do something
06:10different um but I I'd say it's not that hard you know just have confidence in yourself and it'll
06:15you'll be fine. Fair enough I think I've got it backwards there it's only sort of
06:19strengthening the bond between player and coach being father and son.
06:25Dave I'll come back to you for a moment uh I asked uh Nate what's particularly difficult when
06:30you're starting out as a player on the other side of that what's kind of difficult when you're
06:33starting out as a coach what kind of things are you having to address especially early on when you
06:38started coaching and you mentioned there for Team GB where does that start what is it is it
06:43conversations with the players is it the tactics where does it really start to kind of
06:47become an obstacle course? Well I think um crucial thing with coaching is always just getting to know
06:54the players and to sort of understand them as human beings really for my coaching when I have coached
06:59sort of obviously before I went away from the sport and then coming back to it in the last four years
07:04supporting my sons um I think the crucial thing always was working with under 19s or under 17s
07:11um is just understanding them as as people but also as kids they're growing up their bodies are changing and
07:18sort of bulking out and developing um they've got exams and uh life outside of of uh American football as
07:26well which we need to account for and certainly at the at our club at the Kent Phoenix um with the
07:31under 19s team that the Nate plays for um there's a really good I think family kind of network and
07:37atmosphere that means that the kids are well supported and we try to look after them and then
07:42from there you know understanding who they are then you can start to develop and and think about where
07:47they might best fit as a player um one of the lovely things about American football is there's
07:52it's sort of a role for everybody really so you know if you're a bigger guy then there's a particular
07:57role for you if you're smaller or quicker um you know somebody like me when I was playing I was sort
08:02of a skinny lad who could run so I was there was a role for me if you can catch you might play on the
08:08offense and be responsible for trying to score if you're not very good at catching the ball then you
08:13might play on defense and be a tackler um so you know with that we sort of work out what they're good
08:18at and and then try to coach them up and help them develop their skills um so they can begin to
08:24contribute and um and you know very quickly um we try to get them involved on the field so they can
08:30get that taste of of actually playing against other teams which usually just means that they want to
08:36develop further so it's it's a partnership I think but certainly working with the kids and helping them
08:41to grow is is really the fundamental parts of it that's amazing and I completely agree I'm a bit of an
08:47American football fan myself and what I find most interesting is definitely the positions there's
08:52such a variety of positions that I feel you don't really get in any other sport especially with
08:56the way that the game is split between offense and defense so I'm very curious what a training session
09:01for the under-19s and the legion might actually look like are you having to kind of split people up
09:06based on position and say okay well we're going to have our cornerbacks over here practicing a certain
09:10routine we're going to have our quarterbacks over here we'll have our wide receivers doing these kind
09:14of runs where does that start and what does that look like especially maybe to me or someone else who might not
09:20know much about the individual positions
09:24yeah it probably looks like organized chaos to other people I would have thought but um
09:28yes you're right it basically starts off uh we train on a sunday uh in uh at the legion
09:34uh with the under-19s and um they start off with a warm-up obviously it's really important we stretch
09:39and uh get physically ready for the session and uh and we do that together as a whole team with our team captains
09:45leading that which nate is is one of those and then from there we usually split down into individual
09:53as it's called uh sort of sessions indies where they will then be split up based on their position so
10:01as you say you might have um defenders cornerbacks linebackers working together um offensive line
10:07defensive line working together opposing one another um obviously for receivers they tend to work
10:13with quarterbacks because they need someone to throw them the ball um but the quarterbacks have
10:17other responsibilities as well so you know you we vary them there's sort of it's short sharp uh drills
10:23where they then move on to the next thing working through different skills and developing their
10:27technique um possibly with different groups of people sometimes with the same groups of people
10:32and then usually towards the end of the session we either work on particular situational
10:37aspects of football so trying to imagine a particular scenario and then um uh sort of paying attention
10:44to that or we uh practice together have sort of little practice games and scrimmages sometimes with
10:50limited amounts of contact uh sometimes it's a bit more than that um as we try and get them ready for
10:56the actual season amazing we haven't got too much time left but very quickly i am curious about uh drawing up
11:03the plays is that something that you do as the offensive coordinator or is it almost that there's a
11:08set amount of plays that you take from maybe the nfl or you take from other places that you adopt into
11:12your game now we start with a playbook uh that that i created um really knowing the capabilities of our
11:20players i think that's a really important thing to try to match um their abilities to what we try to run
11:26but then during the course of the season as nay said earlier we find some things work some things don't
11:30work uh or we may play against a particular opponent where we think we can sort of attack them in a
11:36particular way well that's it for part one join us after the break as we talk more about the team's
11:42playbook their league success and nate's future in american football you can see all that and more
11:48after this very short break see you in just a few minutes
12:00you
15:00Hello and welcome back to Invicta Sport right here on KMTV.
15:10Today we're speaking to David and Nate Green from South East Legion American Football Club.
15:15Well, here's part two of our chat.
15:17Talk us through a bit of how the league went. How did it really start?
15:22Yeah, well, I mean, kind of first tournament was our home tournament, I believe. So it's always good to start your season at home with pitches, you know, hopefully your parents and fans are there.
15:39And started with a kind of 2-0 win. Scrappy wins, I'd probably say. We weren't as good as we are now. And but just get it over the line. And I think that's been the story of the season really so far is just getting games over the line.
15:59And we've had some games where we've, especially in the last tournament really clicked and just, you know, full team has played really well. But we've also had games where we really had to fight and just get it over the line, get an extra point so you can just stay ahead.
16:16Yeah, just leaning on the run game and let it go.
16:21I think the first tournament we beat Oxford and that was a high scoring game. I think it's 56 to 30. And then we played pool as well down from the southwest. They came up for that tournament and that was a close one that ended 13-7.
16:36Right. I think. I think from there, just trying to think which came next. The second tournament was in Wembley.
16:47Yeah. Sorry about this. We probably ought to check this and actually look it up for you.
16:56No. OK. It's all right. We can. Yes, it was. Oh, it was. OK. No worries. OK. Brilliant.
17:03And sort of as the season was continuing, what point did it kind of click in both of your heads? Like, hold on, we're doing quite well here.
17:12I'm sure there was a point because obviously you won the season without a single loss. Is that right?
17:18Yeah. So we the second tournament, again, was a pair of wins and we beat South Wales in that tournament and then played the game against Wembley, which was their home tournament.
17:29And for me, anyway, I think that Wembley game was really key because, A, they were at home, but B, they're also a very good team.
17:36And we had to come from behind to win that one. We won the game 28-21.
17:41And at that point, you start to think, OK, you know, you look at your fixtures and see who you've got left to play.
17:47Start thinking about, you know, who you might beat more easily than others, that sort of thing.
17:53And, you know, and start having a sniff of the fact that the playoffs were not far away.
17:59We needed arguably two more wins, depending on what happened elsewhere, to be sure of the playoffs.
18:06But it actually was then finally all confirmed in the final tournament.
18:12So, but Nate, you talk about, do you want to talk about the sort of the third and fourth tournament?
18:17Yeah, I mean, well, I think it did click on that second tournament.
18:20And that was where we really, as a team, kind of realised, OK, we've got something here.
18:25That win against the Stallions was huge, just kind of arguably we shouldn't have won that game.
18:31They kind of, they had us dead to rights and then just, you know, a couple big plays after another.
18:37And suddenly we're ahead and winning.
18:42And then, yeah, third and fourth tournament, we just kind of, we kept on building on that.
18:47And it got to the point where by the fourth tournament, we just, we played incredibly well as a team.
18:53Third tournament, we played Bristol and kind of narrowly beat them and then came back in the fourth and had a really big win.
19:00So, yeah, it's just been building and building, really.
19:05And I think as that's happened, belief in the team has built that this is special and we've got some really talented players.
19:12I see. And as the season's progressed, we were talking a bit about plays earlier.
19:16Was there any kind of play that was almost the old reliable?
19:19Like you knew that, OK, we're maybe, we're not getting it started.
19:23Let's bring out this play. Was there any play like that or was it a bit more varied?
19:26Well, I don't know if I should tell you just in case any of our opponents are watching for the national finals.
19:33But, yeah, we know where we have strength, if you like, both in terms of our offensive game,
19:41but also what our defence is capable of as well.
19:44And I think on that front, one of the things that's been really noticeable about the team this year,
19:48perhaps compared to previous years, is actually that our defence has been scoring points as well,
19:54taking the ball away from other teams and then running it back themselves, you know, for touchdowns.
20:01So that, you know, as an offensive coordinator and someone who's calling the plays,
20:05I like to see that because it takes the pressure off me.
20:08If they've already scored points for us, then it makes life a little bit easier.
20:13But, yeah, we're a team that's built around the running game, really, as an offence.
20:17Because we have some really talented running backs.
20:20And so we sort of start there and then Nate comes into play both in terms of reading the game
20:28and understanding what's best in the running game, but also with that ability to throw
20:33and try and get yards downfield.
20:34And certainly in that side of our game, the passing game has been growing,
20:38getting better as the season progressed.
20:39And as Nate said earlier, probably came together most obviously in that final tournament
20:44where we played Bristol and Berkshire and won both games without conceding a point.
20:50Amazing. Yeah, definitely a sort of tribute to your defence there.
20:54Now, you mentioned the national finals.
20:57And yeah, without giving too much away to your opponents,
21:00can you give us a bit of how you're feeling ahead of the tournament?
21:03And when exactly is it?
21:04Well, it's on August the 16th.
21:09It takes place in Oxford this year.
21:11And we're playing, well, we'll be playing the champions of the Northern Division,
21:15which is Yorkshire, a team based in Leeds,
21:18as well as the two next best teams alongside ourselves as the Southern champions,
21:24which this year happens to be Wembley, as I mentioned earlier,
21:27and then also Poole down from the southwest.
21:29So the four of us will gather in Oxford.
21:31In Oxford, there'll be two semifinals.
21:34We will play Poole as the number one ranked team in the nation at the moment.
21:38And they're the fourth.
21:39And then the second and third, Yorkshire and Wembley will play each other.
21:42And then the two winners will play the final.
21:46And the National Women's League, the adults, are also playing the same day.
21:52So, you know, we'll play our semifinals, then they'll play theirs.
21:56And then likewise, then our final and then their final is sort of a festival of football on the day.
22:02But in terms of how we're feeling, I think probably Nate should answer that one as one of the players.
22:08Yeah, confident, I'd say.
22:09I think we know it's going to be tough.
22:13Every time kind of a result came in and the playoff picture started to get a bit clearer,
22:18we were kind of like, oh, you know, we're playing those guys again.
22:21We're playing those guys again.
22:23Because these are tough teams and they're teams that we've, you know, had to fight to beat before.
22:28I think the incredible thing about this team is it just keeps getting better.
22:36As we've gone on from tournament one to tournament four, we've got better.
22:40I think since tournament four, we've improved.
22:43Especially my own game, kind of, it's my second year playing quarterback.
22:48And I've just tried to embrace the opportunity that I am starting to just keep going up.
22:55But we, I know, I think the team knows we've got something special.
23:00We've got players that are going to come up in big moments and make some incredible plays for the team.
23:06So we've just focused, turned up, ready to play.
23:10And I think we've got a real chance.
23:13Amazing.
23:13And David, you mentioned there about being the rank one team.
23:18What was the reaction?
23:19I suppose I'm asking both of you.
23:20What was the reaction among players and among coaching staff when you found that out?
23:25Well, we basically came down to our final tournament.
23:29And we knew, well, we won the Southern title that day with our first win.
23:35But then we had another game to play against Bristol, the second game.
23:39Which, basically, statistically speaking, we knew that if we won it, then we would be the number one ranked team.
23:46Yorkshire in the North have, they're undefeated too.
23:49But they have had a tied game and won all the rest, whereas for us it's been all wins.
23:55So, you know, a win in that final game was something that would confirm us as the number one seed.
24:01Obviously, the boys did the work.
24:03They, you know, they got that.
24:04But there were some huge celebrations at the end of the tournament.
24:07And it was great to see us.
24:10I was very proud of them.
24:11There were a few tears around the place, as well as people cheering.
24:15Obviously, mums and dads all cheering them on and brothers and sisters and other sort of club family members in different ways.
24:23But it was a special day, a good feeling.
24:25But we know we don't want to think that we're done yet, really.
24:29We've still got two more games to play in the national finals.
24:31And a number one seed doesn't mean anything if we don't actually end up as the champions.
24:36So, you know, we need to focus on these three other teams that are out there, all of them good teams.
24:43But we don't know much about Yorkshire at this stage because obviously they play in the North.
24:47But hopefully together then we can sort of win out.
24:52Yeah, I kind of agree with all of that.
24:55It was a massive feeling of kind of elation.
24:58I think for some of the guys, especially myself included, we've we gained a lot of new players this year and kind of recently.
25:09But some of us who have been at the club for a while have been part of teams that haven't had that success and have had seasons where we lost a lot of games.
25:18So kind of after all that, finally getting an undefeated season, you know, it's something we talked about at the beginning of the season where that's where we want to aim.
25:26That's what we want to achieve was massive.
25:29But at the same time, amongst all the celebration, job's not finished.
25:35Absolutely. And I love that there. Job's not finished.
25:38But I'm sure you and the team will get it done.
25:40Now, very quickly, just before we go, we always on Invictus Sport like to ask people, what would you say to your younger self when you were first getting started in the sport?
25:48But, Nate, instead, I'd like to ask you, what are your dreams for the future of your American football career?
25:56Yeah, I'm kind of I'm heading to university in September.
26:00Well, hopefully, you know, results day soon.
26:03But my hope is to go to university.
26:06I'm going to Warwick, which is very good at American football in this country.
26:13They're in one of the top divisions.
26:15I want to play.
26:16I want to start and I want to have success, really.
26:19That's kind of where I'm aiming.
26:21Amazing. Well, good luck for then and good luck for the finals.
26:24And thank you both so much for joining me.
26:27Well, that's it from us on today's episode of Invictus Sport.
26:30Don't forget, there's plenty more sports news, interviews and features from right across the county, available all on our website.
26:36That's kmtv.co.uk.
26:38So just click on the sports tab.
26:40Watch back previous episodes of Invictus Sport by clicking on programs.
26:43Well, that's it for now, and we'll see you next time.
26:46Goodbye.
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