Get to know Loveland area youth football coach Brian Barnes
LOVELAND, Colo. — Brian Barnes, a Loveland Colorado resident and business owner, is Head Coach for NOCO Football League Grizzlies (https://noco.football/about/), a 4th-grade tackle football team. He’s been coaching youth football for seven years.
He started playing himself at seven years old; played at Thompson Valley High School, and earned a scholarship to Mayville State University in North Dakota. There he was a 3-year starter, team captain and a graduate assistant coach. After college he played four years of semi-pro football and has been an assistant coach at Berthoud High School.
Barnes believes keys to the team’s success is a matter of each individual competing with his best self at every single aspect of the game. Every rep. Every day. All of those tiny successes lead to overall success.
“In 2021 we started the season 0 and 3, but consistently improved. The boys learned to trust the process of building minor successes week after week. We won our league’s flag football championship at CSU Canvas Stadium. It was really special for the boys and for me.”
Barmes knows how to frame losing so his players learn from losses. “Losses are much more important than wins. We start each game by telling them that there is nothing that happens between these lines that changes one fact: They are loved. There is nothing that they can or can not do that will change that fact. When we do lose, we emphasize how important losing is in life. There is no better teacher than failure. But that lesson is lost if you point fingers and blame. You have to be humble, look at the loss for what it is, a phenomenal teacher. When you do that, you will improve 10 times faster than after a win.”
When asked about his proudest moment as a coach, Barnes answers, “Having young men to coach is one of the great blessings of my life. Not to avoid the question, but I think my proudest moments come on a daily basis. The boys grow and learn at such a tremendous rate at this age. They are so impressionable. Everyday I am proud of them. I love seeing them fail, I love seeing them pick themselves up afterward. I love how 30 minutes after a devastating loss, they can be playing around like nothing in the world is bothering them.”
Being a coach has been a learning experience for Barnes, as well as his players. “Everything that happens in life takes place during a 60 minute football game. That is why I love this game so much. Fear, anxiety, joy, success, overcoming obstacles, dealing with unexpected situations, love, hate, envy, pride. Football mirrors life in such a fantastic way. I’ve learned that coaches, at every level, are so easily seduced by winning and championships and if they are not extremely careful and vigilant, their ego will very quickly get in the way of teaching these boys how to become men. It is easy to lose sight of the most valuable thing we can teach: Love, determination, confidence and courage.”
As for leaving a legacy as a coach, Barnes is straightforward. “If even one boy on my team, 20 years from now, can take one lesson they learned with me and apply it to their adult life, that will be legacy enough for me.”
According to Barnes, there seems to be two philosophies in youth sports:
1) Everybody should play equally, everyone should get a trophy.
OR
2) Win at all costs.
He believes this is the brokenness of the youth sports world, as neither of these approaches teach the boys valuable life lessons. Barnes explains, “Boys need to compete. Life is about competing. It is ingrained into our DNA and to deny it is a lie to our very nature. But in the search for that competition, they need to learn how to compete. They need to learn that hard work pays off and there is a reward for that hard work. They also need to know that the score will take care of itself. Life, football, work, it isn’t about winning, it is about the daily, disciplined pursuit of success. we don’t talk about winning on my team, we talk about success. What is success? The best I’ve seen the word defined is by John Wooden: ‘Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best you are capable of becoming.’ If we focus on that, we can’t lose, no matter what the scoreboard says.”
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