Denver Broncos Flag Football Coach of the Week: Greg Johnson, Ralston Valley

AURORA – After two seasons as the team’s defensive coordinator, Greg Johnson moved up to head coach at Ralston Valley this season.

After wins last week over previously undefeated Northfield (18-16) and Columbine (48-6), the Mustangs improved to 7-1, just one win short of last year’s 8-9 campaign that ended in the state playoffs, and they are ranked No. 3 in 5A in CHSAA’s selection & seeding index.

For his efforts, Johnson has been recognized by being named the CHSAA/Denver Broncos Flag Football Coach of the Week.

Q& A with Ralston Valley coach Greg Johnson:

What is your coaching background – where else have you coached and what other sports?
I’ve coached a lot of different things: youth basketball, middle school track up in Greeley years ago, soccer … a little bit of everything. I coached high school football years ago. It’s been a journey with a lot of different things.

How did you wind up as the flag football coach at Ralston Valley?
My daughter, who just graduated from Ralston Valley last spring, came home one day and said, ‘They’re starting a flag football team and there’s one coach out there and he could really use some help if you wanted to help.’ At the time I wasn’t teaching – I was working with my wife in the real estate appraisal business – so ‘Yeah, I’ve got time. Let’s make this work.’ I got to coach my daughter, which I hadn’t done since maybe fourth grade soccer. Cris Johnson started the program, but I was there for the very first summer practice they ever had, and he asked if I could coach defense. That’s how I got involved. … Now I’m the head coach and offensive coordinator.

How do you get up to speed with everything that’s involved with coaching the sport?
If I’m really getting into something, whatever it is, I tend to dive into it, try to figure out as much as I can, ask a lot of questions. Defense, especially the exploratory year before CHSAA (sanctioning), I looked at film, saw, ‘OK, here’s what good teams are doing, here’s where we can make some adjustments,’ or ‘Here’s something that works but we don’t have the personnel for it, …’ so it was a lot of learning on the fly that first year. … That led to building relationships with some other coaches in the area. … And there’s a club team in Colorado that my daughter played for that I’ve helped coach. It’s 5-on-5, but it was a good way for me to immerse myself with people who have been in the game for 20, 30, 40 years. I was able to pick their brains and think about what I could implement into the 7-on-7 level, see what works with my philosophy, and then sort of meld them all together.

What is your coaching style?
In general, I tend to be low key. I don’t yell and scream from the sidelines. I don’t yell at the athletes when they make mistakes. In girls sports, I think if you’re yelling and screaming, that’s all that anybody hears and they aren’t listening to the whys. I try to do a lot of explaining. ‘Here’s why we’re doing this.’ ‘I’m calling this play because in three or four plays it will set up something else.’ As long as they know why you’re doing something, these kids will do anything you need them to do. My staff is on board with that, too. We can raise our voice to get someone’s attention, but we want it to be a positive environment. If it’s positive, we’re going to get so much more out of these kids.

What is the culture of your program and how are you developing and enhancing it?
The culture is about being positive, being uplifting, and about teaching the game. A lot of these kids had never played the game before. In Colorado, we’re really growing a product from almost nothing. … This is a chance to try something, make mistakes, make adjustments so that on game day they’re in a much better position to succeed. That’s when they see and understand why we did those things in practice. My coaching staff believes the same thing. I trust my athletes to do the right stuff, and I trust my coaches to make the right decisions. I by no means am a dictator. I don’t think I know everything, and if I make a mistake I’ll be the first one to admit it. … That allows the athletes to have the grace to know they can make mistakes, and if they own their mistakes we’ll all be better for it.

How have you seen flag football grow as a sport over your three seasons at Ralston Valley?
It’s grown so much. It feels like we have made astronomical adjustments. The first year was, ‘Figure out how to get your best player involved and bring along everyone else the best that you can.’ It was more basic concepts. Now I’m watching teams do some pretty exotic things, giving different looks, and everybody is trying to disguise (what they are going to do). … We’re making calls when we see certain looks. … We’re running things now that three years ago I would have never imagined that we could. They are picking it up so quickly because they really love it. … And now they see colleges offering scholarships. … I’m happy just to be a part of it. I’m just trying to help them be the best they can, and if I can help them at all then I’ve done something.

How have you seen flag football impact the lives of your players?
For some kids, maybe academics aren’t their strong suit, but they’re motivated to get good grades so that they can continue to play. … Also, we had two seniors who stand out to me from our first team, because they gave up their senior year to play one year on one team that’s not even CHSAA (sanctioned). One is now playing for a Division II school, Wingate (N.C.), and the other is now one of my assistant coaches. I keep telling her that I would love to see former players come back and take over this program.

You’re 7-1 this season after going 8-9 last year, what has led to that step forward?
Luckily I had been here (as an assistant), so the kids who were here before trusted me. And just sitting down with my staff and picking the brains of other coaches about what works best for us and what works in this league – because JeffCo is a tough league with a lot of talent. … What are the good teams doing and what have we maybe not done the best with, and then tailoring an offense and a defense to the personnel we have instead of having our idea and making them work towards that – it’s working with their abilities. … I couldn’t be prouder of the girls. We didn’t really know how it was going to go. We lost a lot of senior leadership from last year. And seeing them step up has been incredible. There’s been so much positivity. They’re working with each other, and nobody is getting down on each other. We’ve had a couple of games that were pretty close – and the Arvada West game (a 20-18 win on Aug. 27) stands out because they were making a comeback – and a lot of times in the past maybe we’ve crumbled under pressure, but we just didn’t. They stayed with it and stuck it out. It’s really them and my assistants who have helped us get where we are. I might tell them what I want, but we’ve all worked together and they’ve done a great job.

What are your goals for the rest of the season?
In many ways it’s already been a successful season as far as the culture of the team goes. We had 75 kids come out and we have 53 on the rosters between freshman, JV and varsity. We’ve asked for help with coaching (volunteers), and we started with four, then had one more join in the summer and have had three more join us since. They’re all parents of players, but I think they’re seeing the positivity of what’s going on. … Record-wise, when you’re 7-1, you have to start saying, ‘Hey, why not us?’ Obviously you have to go through the big dogs. Nobody gives you a title. You have to work for it. But we’re in a really nice position, and if we keep winning like we are, there’s a shot at a JeffCo title and a shot at a state title. But we have to keep doing what we’re doing to get there.