Monday, February 29, 2016

Roosevelt Football Coach Erik Link Shares His Vision



Roosevelt Family:

It’s with great excitement, passion, and humility that I introduce myself as the next Head Football Coach. I am truly honored and humbled with the opportunity to be your Head Coach. There is no greater platform to impact lives and a school community. I can assure you that I do not take this responsibility lightly and will work every day to ensure that our young people have a great experience with in our program. It’s my intent to hire a staff that is full with men of a great character and share my passion for positively impacting the lives of young people.

 Our vision is to build a successful football family including administration/faculty, coaches, players, parents, and community members that facilitates the development of young student-athletes in becoming productive students, athletes, and citizens. Our vision encompasses five areas: athletics, academics, team, personal, and societal. We want to prepare, equip, and motivate all student-athletes to win in each of those areas. Our players will strive to make a lasting and measurable difference within the team, their families, and their community. 

Our program motto is simply G.B.E.D. “Get Better Every Day”. We want our student-athletes to find something they can identify each day to improve in or get better at. It’s our belief that if each student-athlete in our program does this, “we” in turn will improve as a Football Family. 

Our program “it’s” for each phase of our program are as follows:
Our offensive “it”: We are a 2-back/play action hurry up no huddle offense that operates at a 2 minute pace the entire game.
Our defensive “it”: We will relentlessly pursue the football for 48 minutes and establish a physical edge for the entire game.
Our Special Teams “it”: Provide the winning edge.
Our Coaches/Players “it”: Develop dynamic and meaningful relationships with one another.
Our Roosevelt Family “it”: Unite as One!

I am very much looking forward to meeting all of you in the very near future. I strongly encourage you to get involved with our football family in any way that you possibly can. Roosevelt has a long tradition of excellence in so many programs and we intend to establish a level of excellence with our football program that everyone in the Roosevelt community can be proud to support.

Go Riders!

Coach Link

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Thank You


Our winter home games and meets have come to a close for the 2015-16 seasons.  It's amazing how fast the time goes and I'm continuing to learn a great deal as I work through my first year at Roosevelt.  I do know that it is an amazing place with amazing people. 

I'd just like to take a moment to say Thank You to everyone who has helped us at our home events.  To all of the volunteers who work on the pool deck during swim meets, work as announcers, work computers, scoreboards, and various other score table responsibilities at all of our events a huge Thanks to you. 

To all of our night set up crew who work to get our facility ready for events setting up the gym and then clean it up after the contests so school can start again in the morning, Thank You. 

Thank You to the teachers who have shown up to take the gate money for all of our events and to the concession stand workers who have shown up and contributed their time and energy to run the concession stands.  

We were blessed with such a great group of vocalists to sing our National Anthem at our events and were treated to be best drum line in the state at several basketball games.  Thank You for sharing your talents and showing what amazing students we have.  

Thank You to our cheerleaders and their coaches for leading us with their school spirit.  The same goes to our Super Fans student section who have taken over gyms and been such a big help in some of our games with their enthusiasm and support. 

Thank You to those that helped to provide some half-time entertainment during the season.  The dance team, individual dancers, and our drill team provided some great entertainment throughout the season.  

Parents, I've worn those shoes, and I Thank You for sharing your child with us and helping in so many ways.  It's a phase of life that passes quickly so I hope you've had some moments to cherish.     

And finally, Thank You to all of the students and coaches who have given their time, talents, and energy to represent Roosevelt High School in such a positive way.  Our hope is that you've created memories and learned some life lessons that will last a lifetime.  

(Good Luck to the Girls Bowling team at State and Boys Basketball as you face Valley on Friday)

Thank You Riders!

#bleedblue  

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Leadership Lessons From Super Bowl 50


 
Super Bowl 50 is a week in the books but I'd like to just touch on a couple of leadership take a ways from the post game.  Many have seen or read about Carolina quarterback Cam Newton's post-game press conference.  If you haven't hear it is.


I understand the disappointment of losing on the biggest stage of the year, but I think we need to be gracious and available even in defeat.  The Panthers, in particular Cam, have been celebrating all season and even been criticized for some of the actions they used in celebration.
Lesson #1:  Everyone is always happy and upbeat when life is good and we're winning but how are you when things get tough?  Tough times are going to happen. Be prepared and handle them with grace and class. I'm sure Cam Newton will learn from this, grow because of it, and be better next time.  (That is a free leadership lesson as well)

On the other side much was being made about Peyton Manning and if he would announce his retirement.  Had he wanted the moment he certainly could have taken it but his teammate Von Miller had just been named the MVP of the game and had almost single handedly dominated the Panthers.  What Peyton did was the second lesson I believe we can learn from the night.
Lesson #2: Even if the spotlight is thrown upon you don't take away from the team and your teammates if they deserve their moment. 

Until next time Roughriders.

#bleedblue

Monday, February 8, 2016

More Than A Game - Rider Pride Night 2016

(photo courtesy of Daniel Doyle)
Awesome, astonishing awe-inspiring, beautiful, wonderful.  The words to describe the scene and activity in Pomerantz Gymnasium could go on and on as the third annual Rider Pride game was played.  The game was just a tool to help make memories that will last a lifetime.  A special recognition to the organizer of this incredible evening, Emily Ruff-Burroughs and the Best Buddies at TRHS.  
To see our school and community come together and support this game was impressive.  I had heard about it and even watched the You Tube video of the first one two  years ago, but to actually experience is something that is so good for the heart and soul.  I've been fortunate to witness some marvelous things in my 31 years in education but nothing quite like this.  Thank you to all those that participated and gave their time to help make the Rider Pride game a reality.  
Here's what I was reminded of after reflecting on the evening.  
  1. Never underestimate the impact of what we might consider something so simple to actually do.  Many times we just have to act on what we may see as unimportant and it usually has a big impact. 
  2. When you use the position and talents you've been given to impact others you receive the biggest blessing and lesson. 
  3.  In the grand scheme of things memories are one of the greatest things we can give and receive. 
  4. Roosevelt has terrific students, school, and community. 
If you missed the game or would like to relive it click the link below.  
Rider Pride 2016 Courtesy of Joe Mahoney

Continue to make a difference in the world around you.

#bleedblue
 

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

The Roughriders Are Now On Pinterest

Yes, that's right, we've added another social media site to our repertoire and it seems only natural given the founder of Pinterest is a Roughrider.  Ben Silbermann graduated from Roosevelt in 1999 and launched Pinterest in 2010.  We will use Pinterest to share information on "boards" that may help students and families in a variety of areas and some that may just be of interest and fun.  We currently have the following topics on our site:
  1. Concussion Management
  2. Social Media
  3. Sportsmanship
  4. Inspirational Quotes
  5. Sports Nutrition
  6. Sports Parenting 
  7. Multi-Sport Athletes
  8. State Offices
  9. Leadership 
  10. Ted Talks
  11. NCAA/NAIA Eligibility Center
  12. Roosevelt Photos
  13. Miscellaneous
If you have some ideas on areas that may be of interest or help please let me know and we'll expand what we have on our page.  If you'd like to follow our page and are a Pinterest user you can find us by searching DM Roosevelt Roughriders.  If you're not a Pinterest user you can sign up and start using the social media platform created by a Roosevelt Roughrider. We'll be adding to it on a regular basis. We hope you'll enjoy it.

All for now.  Thanks for spending some time with me.

#bleedblue