Coach Buddy Anderson weighs in on the evolution of the high school game
The last football game that Buddy Anderson ever played in got off to a stone cold start.
It was November 1971, and the Samford University football team was facing Ohio Wesleyan in the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl. Anderson, a Samford senior lineman, took the field in the first quarter as a blocker on a kickoff return.
“One of my good friends, we would cross-block, and I said, ‘Don’t hit me, hit the other person,’” Anderson recalled. “Well, what does he do? He hits me and knocks me down.”
While attempting to climb to his feet, Anderson absorbed a knee to his forehead, courtesy of the Bulldogs’ return man.
His helmet, he said, split like a watermelon.
“How I got to the sideline I don’t know, but I didn’t know where I was,” Anderson said. “I wasn’t knocked out, but I was in a stupor, dazed. I didn’t know what day it was.”
Anderson said he finally “came to” his senses at the end of the first quarter. In typical 1970s fashion, he then played the rest of the game.
“That was nothing unusual back then,” Anderson said.
How the times have changed.
Now entering his 39th season as head coach at Vestavia Hills High School, Anderson identified the rise of concussion awareness and treatment protocol as one of the game’s paradigm shifts that has occurred during his career. That, on-field schematics and pace of play represent three key facets in which the coach said he has noticed continual evolution.
With decades of experience and more than 300 victories to his name, Anderson has nearly seen it all during his legendary tenure. While he acknowledged that the game has undoubtedly changed, some things, he said, will always stay the same.
Pass-happy offenses
When Anderson took over as the Rebels’ head coach in 1978, he relied on an offensive attack centered on a commitment to the ground game.
That’s still the way he likes to do it, but at the time, it was a more common approach.
“In the ‘70s and ‘80s, it was a more option-and-run game on offense with some play-action passes thrown in,” said 27th-year Briarwood head coach Fred Yancey, one of Anderson’s longtime coaching pals. “If you could win the C-gap on offense — off-tackle play — you could win the games. Conversely, if you could stop the C-gap power, you could win games, but it was a lower scoring, harder grinding, more difficult yard-getting way to do things.”
As Anderson and Yancey can both attest, offensive strategy has transformed over time. Nowadays, almost every team incorporates the passing game into its base system.
Many, in fact, have come to rely on it.
With the sweeping emergence of the spread formation, a number of offenses have opted to operate out of the shotgun. The tactical shift has subsequently opened the field, creating more space for a diverse attack.
“Today’s game, it’s a sideline-to-sideline game, where it used to be people would line up, put their hand in the ground, put a lot of weight on their hand, and they were going to come out and just hit you,” said Vestavia Hills athletic director Jeff Segars, one of Anderson’s defensive linemen in the mid-80s.
Although Anderson still implements a bruising, run-first attack out of the I-formation, teams that employ such a strategy have steadily dwindled in recent years. Spain Park, leaning on the I and pistol formations, and Oak Mountain, using the split-back veer, are exceptions to the norm. But for the most part, classic styles of offense have been swapped for fast-paced, pass-happy approaches that often flow without a huddle.
Anderson said his defense has been forced to adapt accordingly.
“Used to, you’d find somebody at linebacker that’s tough, and you wanted that guy like a Dick Butkus,” Anderson said in reference to the hard-hitting NFL Hall of Fame linebacker. “We never had that guy, but you wanted somebody like that who’s going to be tough on the run when you’re playing a lot of run offenses. With the spread offenses, we’ve had to adapt and go with more mobile guys at linebacker.”
Even with lighter, faster personnel, Anderson has maintained a reputation of annually fielding a gritty football team. Because of Anderson’s influence, Segars said, Vestavia is just as much of a smash-mouth force today as it was during his own playing days.
“Still today, Vestavia is just a tough, hard-nosed football team,” Segars said “People know when you play Vestavia, you’re going to get hit.”
But the jarring effect of impact after impact reemphasizes the concussion issue. What was once viewed as an expected consequence of the game has surged to the forefront of public debate. “The concussion issue is probably one of the biggest things that’s come along,” Anderson said.
Apart from following mandated protocol, which includes time limits on contact practices, Anderson said that he has taken extra precautions to prevent the onset of concussions among his players.
After each season, he said he sends every helmet and set of shoulder pads off for reconditioning. He also said he places an increased emphasis on ensuring that his players develop strong neck muscles, a key factor in stymying the onset of concussions.
“We’ve been very proactive,” Anderson said. “The last thing we want to do is to have somebody hurt.”
Constants of the game
Despite the various changes—to concussion protocol, to X’s and O’s, to pace— Anderson said that elements of the game have stayed the same.
Though they may look a bit different, he said the fundamental components of blocking, tackling, running and throwing still comprise the substance of the sport.
11 teammates battle 11 teammates for four quarters, spilling blood, sweat and tears in hopes of finishing the season latched to the top of the standings.
At its heart, Anderson said, the core of the game remains unchanged.
“Kids today are different, but they’re still looking to be a part of something bigger than them,” Anderson said. “They’re looking for discipline — they don’t know it a lot of times. They’re looking for somebody to care about them, somebody to love them, demand the best of them. They’re looking for all those things. That part hasn’t changed.”