1. The rumbling clash of helmets is stopped short
by the shriek of a whistle and the thud of Coach Arnold’s clip
board as it hits the ground. The boys know what’s coming. In a low,
staccatoed bellow, she (yes, you read right) - she lays in. “How–many–
times–do–I–have–to–say–it? This is a THINKING MAN’S GAME!”
Following a review of the play and some specific instructions to the
quarterback, they run the play again. And again.
With numbers as thin as the freshmen frames that dot its offensive
and defensive lines, many on Mesa Preparatory Academy’s young
team have never played a game of football in their lives, much
less entire games as two-way players. In fact, the 15 boys seem as
out of place as their practice field, a lone patch of green in a sea of
desert brown. But because someone cared to plant, water, nurture,
and groom a field, and a bunch of green young men, the team has
emerged as an inspiration to everyone around them.
No doubt, they took their cue from Coach Amy Arnold. One
of two female head coaches of a high school football team in the
nation, and head of the only all-female coaching staff, Arnold was
as shocked as anyone to find herself in this novel position. But she
and anyone who knows her will tell you it all started, and continues,
because of one thing – passion. For the game, for the students, for
winning, and for teaching.
Arnold’s passion for the game comes from her personal experience
playing it. At the age of 31, she joined a professional women’s football
league and played throughout the U.S. – her second full-time job, as
she called it, but definitely her first love. She played in various leagues
for six years, advancing to the championship game one of those years
and being named “Most Dedicated Player” several of them. It’s also
where she met teammates Angie Darnell and Kim Hoke, now her
assistant coaches.
Following her football career, Arnold found herself applying for the
assistant coaching position at a start-up preparatory academy that was
hiring for a junior high football program because they didn’t have
enough students for a high school program. She walked out of the
interview as Mesa Prep’s head football coach and, though she didn’t
know it at the time, a future teacher.
“Coaching football is what encouraged me to go back to school,” says
Arnold. “That’s why I enrolled at OU™. All the parents kept telling
me, ‘Amy, you’re making such an impact on my son; you’re making
such a difference in his life.’ And I thought, ‘I want more of this. I’m
on the right path, so I’m going back to school to become a teacher.’”
While going to school, Arnold coached the junior high team for two
years before developing a high school program along with her former
teammates. She completed her student teaching at Mesa Preparatory
Academy in December 2010 and is currently a long-term substitute
while she waits for a teaching position to open up.

2. | Fall/Winter 2010-11 | 14
“I love everything about this school,” says Arnold. “I love the Socratic
approach to education, the quality of student, the family values that I
see in the kids that I coach, the small 1A type school, the parents that
really care – I’ve fallen in love with it all. Nothing would please me
more than teaching at this school and coaching high school football
for the next 30 years.”
You wouldn’t hear an argument from the students, parents, faculty,
staff, or fellow-coaches if she stuck around, either. “There are a lot of
parents who sing Amy’s praises,” says Mesa Prep Head Master Robert
Wagner. “You certainly aren’t going to get any skeptics among our
dads. And the teachers are aware that, if their kids aren’t doing well in
the classroom, all they have to do is talk to the coach. Amy and her
staff have been really supportive of getting the kids on board to do
what they need to do in the classroom.”
That, also, comes from example. “I know why academics are so
important,” says Arnold. “My first college experience was through
a softball scholarship – that was number one to me and my grades
suffered badly. At OU, I was a straight A student. I’m very proud of
that. I tell my boys, ‘I’ve got a test tomorrow, so come on – let’s get
out of here.’ And every once in a while they’ll ask, ‘Coach, what did
you get on that test?’ ‘I got a 98 percent.’ ‘Coach! Good job!’ I tell
them it’s because I study. ‘If you start studying, you’ll do the same
thing in the classroom. And if you study the playbook, we can be 98
percent on the field! Football is a thinking man’s game.’”
And the players listen. Though they may be small in numbers and
stature, they are driven by the two things that are not small – their
heart and a healthy respect for Coach Arnold. Hanging on her every
word, “Yes, Coach” is their response whether they’re being yelled at
for a failed play, being told to drop and give her 50, or being teased
about a new girlfriend. With a commanding and compelling balance
between drill sergeant, coach, parent, and friend, Arnold shapes the
boys on her team as both players and young adults.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” says freshman Nate Stock, “but she
knows how to pump us up and how to encourage us. She has a good
balance between being hard on us when she needs to be and being
understanding. She also knows what you can do and can achieve. At
the beginning of the year, I had the speed, but I couldn’t really catch
well. But she had faith in me and we just kept working on it. We
stayed after practice a couple of times, and I got better.”
Matt Kendall is another of Arnold’s freshman players who played
under her in junior high. “I can just tell that she really loves the
game," says Kendall. "That’s why she’s doing all this. Not only is
she a woman coaching a guy’s team, but she’s doing it well. And I
don’t mean to sound offensive, but I don’t even realize that we have a
woman coach. She’s just my coach and you do what she says because
she’s the coach.”
(continued on next page)

3. First-year
Passion Play
15 ouspirit@ottawa.edu | www.ottawaspirit.com | Ottawa University®
(continued)
“Amy’s passion for the game exceeds most coaches,” says
Defensive Coach Darnell. “The care she has for the kids and
coaching them properly – teaching them respect, teaching
them camaraderie, teaching them discipline and hard work –
those are things that will not only affect them on the football
field, but for the rest of their lives, in their schoolwork, in their
jobs, and in their relationships.”
Offensive Coordinator Hoke agrees. “Amy Arnold is an
incredible coach. We all had the same coach while playing
professional ball, and she has surpassed our coach in her abilities.
She took everything we learned from our head coach and took
it to the next level. She’s broken it down so that it doesn’t matter
whether you’re teaching it to 30-year-old women or 15-year-old
boys. They get it – it’s clear, it’s concise, and it’s pretty amazing.
I’ve never seen a team as disciplined, and I’ve been coaching for a
while. She deserves every bit of respect she gets.”
With no seniors, only four juniors, and the rest freshmen and
sophomores, the high school team finished its first season with
a 2-8 record. “There is nothing that I hate worse than losing,”
says Arnold. “It becomes a habit, and I get absolutely furious.
But the teams we played this year have been playing longer,
have more experience, and have more depth. We took our
medicine this year, and we needed to. That way we’ll appreciate
the wins when they come along. We gained an immeasurable
amount of experience this year that hopefully will spill over to
next season.”
The Lead-up
Mesa Prep is one of five Great Heart Preparatory Schools in the
Valley. 2008 was the first year for our junior high football program.
We lost our first game of the season to Glendale, 18-12, but we won
the second game against Scottsdale, 30-6. Next we played Veritas
with four players out because of ineligibility. They cleaned our clocks
44-24. It was horrible. So we were 2 and 2 going into the playoffs and
we had to face Veritas again – but they hadn’t seen us at full strength.
They were a passing team, so I developed a whole new defense against
their passing game – every receiver had double coverage. Danged if
we didn’t beat them 24-6. That put us in the championship game
with a 3-2 record against Glendale, who was undefeated.
The Glendale coach, who is a former NFL player, had been walking
up and down the sideline during that game watching me and
everything that I did. But I told our boys that we could give him
our entire play book and it wouldn’t matter because this was our
time. We were the Giants against the Patriots walking into the
championship game. They were like – YEAH! They got so excited,
and the parents were going berserk. So I had 15 players, 15 sets of
parents, two coaches, and an enthusiastic athletic director all on my
side. It was a very powerful and emotional thing.
First-year Championship Silences the Skeptics

4. Championship| Fall/Winter 2010-11 | 16
Education
The Secret Weapon
At the beginning of the season, I devised a play that involved the
quarterback and the left wing. It was complicated to explain, so we
dubbed it the Stealth Wing play, for short. Now remember, these
boys hadn’t played football before, and this was a pretty intricate
play – it required precise timing, a perfect angle, exact footing. So my
quarterback and left wing practiced this play all year long – before
practice, after practice, on the weekends – trying to perfect it. They
were just enthralled by this play. And they thought the name was
pretty cool, too. Well, they were convinced they finally had it down,
so I made them run it over and over to prove it. Sure enough – they
had it.
So during the championship game, my quarterback, Cameron, was
coming to the sideline to get the plays from me. This one time I
give him a play and he just looked at me and said, “Coach – Stealth
Wing.” I said, “Okay. Run it.” You should have seen the energy field
in that huddle when he told the team they were going to run the
Stealth Wing. It was electric. And sure enough – touchdown! I was
running down the sideline screaming to Cameron – “Go, buddy, go!”
It was unbelievable. Just magical.
As the game wound down, we had about a minute and a half to go
and we were up a touchdown. We had the ball at first down and I
told Cameron to just take a knee to run out the clock. Well, we had
never had to take a knee before. The kids knew everything we had
taught them about the game, but we had never practiced taking a
knee. So when the ball was snapped, not only did Cameron take a
knee, but the entire team went down. I turned around to the parents
and we were all so touched. It was a precious moment.
The Reaction
When we won against this 5-0 team coached by a former NFL player,
I rushed the field in a blubbering mess. I was just so proud of those
boys. I was picking them up, hugging them, screaming, “We did it!
We did it!” Of course, they got me good with the water jug. But the
best part was that my dad was there. So many parents went up to him
during the game and told him things about me. He was just beaming
with pride. He was my coach when I was growing up, so this was
kind of like passing the torch to see me win this championship. It was
a pretty special deal.
The other really cool thing was what several of the parents said to me
after we won. “Coach,” they said, “I think they had better players,
but the difference was that we had a better coach.” That was really
something.
The Screenplay
In the future, you may be able to watch as well as read about Amy
Arnold’s success as a female football coach. OU-Arizona’s Dr. Karen
Bryson worked with Coach Arnold to write a screenplay of the junior
high championship team. It is currently in the hands of a marketing
agent, and if it is bought and picked up by a producer, it could be
coming to a big screen near you!