Blankenbaker develops skills and instills character in his players.
As of June 10, the Plant City High School (PCHS) Raiders have a new head coach. Will Blankenbaker has coached football for 19 years in roles like offensive coordinator, recruiting coordinator, assistant head coach, and coaching running backs, receivers, and special teams. He has lived in Plant City since 2012 and began coaching at PCHS during the 2015 season, most recently coaching quarterbacks. As a player, Blankenbaker began at age seven in Englewood, south of Venice, and played fullback at Western Maryland College. Since he started coaching at PCHS, he has also taught history.
When offered the head coach position, Blankenbaker took it—why? “Honestly, the kids,” he said. “It was not an easy decision. It was thinking about the alternative if I didn’t take the job—what would happen to the program? Plant City is a community I have grown to love, and where I want to raise my family. I didn’t want to see the program fall apart, and I wanted to provide as much stability for the kids as possible. In this age of open enrollment, if there was a whole new staff, there is a good chance there would be a huge exodus of kids. Then the program is in the basement, and it would take a long time to rebuild what Coach Hicks had helped build these past couple of years. Kids need familiarity. That breeds trust, and I have a good relationship with a lot of the kids. It is a huge commitment of time, not only on me, but it shifts household responsibilities to other people to pick up the slack of me being gone a lot more. So, it was definitely a family decision.”
The PCHS head football coach doesn’t get the summer off. Blankenbaker is already putting in 60-hour weeks. “The first couple of days was trying to figure out the biggest holes we’ve got to fill right away to keep the ship from sinking—prioritizing the things that needed to get done first, and trying to get those things in place,” Blankenbaker commented. One of those was to talk with the returning players to try to get their buy in. He is also putting things together so the team is ready for the upcoming season. “We are looking for any kind of financial donations to buy equipment for the kids, because football is a very expensive sport to equip all the players,” Blankenbaker said. “I want the program to be a part of the community. If a restaurant wants to sponsor us, they could bring their food truck to our games, so it provides them a revenue stream as well.” Among other things, the coach is also seeking meal and drink donations, and funds to upgrade the field house.
Players are already practicing two hours a day. “Things have been great,” the coach said. “We have kept every kid. We have 80-90 players at workouts. The kids have bought in, and they are working hard. I am excited. I am excited for them. There are a lot of holes to fill on offense, but we have talented kids that are ready to pick up those roles. Defensively, I am excited. We return a lot on defense.” One aspect of the practices is teaching and implementing the team’s systems of offense and defense.
In addition to replacing players, the new head coach has begun to replace staff who have gone elsewhere. He is looking to bring on three additional coaches for varsity and two for junior varsity. These are largely volunteer positions. “If you are coaching, your goal as a coach is to help kids reach their goals,” Blankenbaker said. “For me, we are raising young men.”
Blankenbaker’s approach to coaching is making use of lessons from football. “I love teaching in any form,” he said. “So, teaching the game while also using that platform to teach life lessons is very important to me. I think it takes a special person to play football. It is hard. It is not an easy sport. It is physically demanding, and we have high expectations for the standards that we set for these kids to meet.”
In addition to physical standards, other standards are things like starting on time, helping clean the locker room, and academics. “If you can’t do the little things right, you will never do the big things right,” Blankenbaker commented. “Yes, we want to win football games, but we want to make sure players are prepared for the next step when they leave high school. If that means me texting mom your daily attendance, I will—and I have. Or if I need to check your grades every day, I will.”
Last year’s Raiders record was 9-3. “I told the team at the first meeting, I don’t have a win/loss goal,” Blankenbaker said. “I have a goal—we meet the standard. If we do our job meeting that standard every day, the results will take care of themselves. The opponent on Friday is irrelevant to the preparation that goes in for Friday. I have been very proud of the fact that all of our kids are bought in, and have been here, hitting the ground running—and working. I feel like we have a team that is talented enough to make it to a good playoff run.”
