Starting now, there will be weekly interviews uploaded by Zach Strong.
Q: How did you get into coaching?
A: The biggest influence for me to get into coaching was the coaches that I’ve had in the past, mostly my college coach. He was older, and in his 60’s when I was playing for him, and he was like that father, grandfather figure, and he was someone that I looked up to and he held me to a higher standard to be not only a better man, but a better football player too. We won a lot of football games for him, and we were always undersized, but we always overachieved and it was all because of him and his influence over us as players, and I looked at that as I was in college and as I was graduating and I thought for me, as a teacher, kids are forced to be in my class, but as a coach, they choose to be on your team, so you have a lot more of an opportunity to invest in them, so I thought you know what, Coach Price was a guy who influenced me, and I want to influence people like he did, so thats why I said coaching is one of the things I wanted to do. I always wanted to teach, and I thought coaching would be a better opportunity to influence kids.
Q: What philosophies do you use when coaching student athletes?
A: The big thing for me is I want them to be able to look in the mirror at the end of the day and say I gave it all I had, for the team I play for, for the school that I play for, for my family, for the God that I serve, and that they want to be an individual that is completely committed. And for me, for the kids that I coach, I want them to know that I love them and that Coach Mozingo cares for them, and that he wants them to be a good football player, but beyond that, I want them to be a good man, a good husband, a good father, a good student, and a good Christian at the same time.
Q: What advice would you give someone aspiring to be a college football player?
A: The biggest misconception about college football is that it correlates with high school football, because it doesn’t. I played small college football, and I can say from that point, but even from coaching for the last fifteen years having coached kids who went on to play college football and talking to college coaches is that the level of talent is obviously better, because in college football you have the best of every high school, and the level of work that is required to play is so much different. And I always tell my kids, if you want to be a college football player, you have to train like a college football player, if you want to be a college basketball player, you have to train like a college basketball player, but if you train like a high school player, you’ll be a high school player. But if you train like a college player, you have a chance to be a college player. And so, the energy and effort you put into it has to be more than everyone around you. If you play on a football team of 11 guys, and 2 are collegiate athletes, I should be able to look on the field and say that guy and that guy are playing in college, because they play that much better. I should be able to go to a workout and say it’s that guy and that guy, because they train so much better, I should be able to go to a classroom and say it’s that guy and that guy because they are outworking everybody in this classroom. My best advice to someone trying to play college football is that what you do in high school doesn’t correlate to what you do in college.
Bryan E. Wilson 