My second year in Finland has started with an interesting situation. While we are trying to defend our Maple Bowl championship and win a record 7th consecutive national championship the team finds itself at a crossroads. The Butchers of 2011 are not the Butchers of 2010. Gone are key players on both sides of the ball. Robert Johnson is playing in Italy, Santtu Ayravainen and Derrick Ford are in Germany, IIro Luoto is in Switzerland. Seppo Evwaraye, Tommi Padatsu, Markus Haverinen, Marko Luoma, Peter Lindholm, Kari Hytonen, and Patrick Hogstrom have all retired. Others have moved to other teams in Finland or have commitments that prevent them from playing this season. All in all it has made for a huge turnover in which our junior players have had to step up and play big roles already in the season.
Add to that scenario the fact that some of our American imports have been delayed in arriving and it made for an interesting open of the season when we took on the Roosters and the Crocodiles in the first two weeks both playoff teams from last season. We are 1-1 now having defeated the Roosters in Helsinki 7-0 and losing to the Crocodiles 21-10 at home this week. While it has been frustrating at times having to rebuild the team it has also been very exciting, even without our American imports. Against the Roosters we played with a purely Finnish team on defense and held them scoreless. Against the Crocodiles we competed strongly and even though we made many mistakes we were in the game till the end. The excitement comes from seeing the development of Finnish players who can play and hold their own against teams with American players. That is the ultimate standard and the reality is that a huge part of my job here is to try and assist in that development. As I reflected upon that process last week after defeating the Roosters I was so proud of our players for what they had accomplished. I also had two other experiences that made me see my role in a clearer perspective. 
Obviously we are playing in a league here which is the top level of football in Europe and the ultimate goal is to win the championship. A goal we have accomplished for six years. However, the longer range goal should be to develop the game to a level where winning a championship does not depend upon who has the best import players. As coaches we should have the best interests of the game in mind when we make decisions and here part of that is to develop Finnish talent to new heights so that they can compete with anyone else in the world. One of the experiences was a conversation with the Finnish National team coach Tuomas Heikkinen who is trying to spearhead a movement to identify and develop young players in anticipation for the 2014 European Championships. The conversation was fantastic and I believe he is making the right moves and his work will pay off if we as coaches will begin to build a community that looks after the game and what is best for it. Allistair MacIntyre argued that we must treat our sport as a “practice community.” (MacIntyre, 1984) He uses this term practice in the sense that doctors practice medicine or lawyers practice the law. Within these practice communities there are certain standards that those involved in the discipline must adhere to in order to make sure that the practice thrives and retains its integrity. As a community within that practice our focus needs to be on those standards and we need to ask ourselves what is in the best interest of our sport? There are times where the answer to that question may conflict with our own personal best interests and in those cases we need to protect our sport and its integrity. I believe that coach Heikkinen is doing this with football in Finland and am excited for the plans that he has. In that vein I also applaud the Trojans and the Jaguars for their commitments to develop Finnish quarterbacks by not bringing in imports. While those players also need mentoring to truly develop, in the short term this may have hurt their national championship hopes but in the long term it will help the game develop in Finland.
The second experience was one that contradicted this notion of a practice community. I went to watch two teams play and one team clearly dominated the other. While this may happen at times the way that the victorious team handled it bothered me. They have three very talented American players and yet when they were up by 30 some points late in the fourth quarter they kept those players in the game and in my view continued to pour it on the other team. Even to the extent of throwing a touchdown pass up by 40 points with seven seconds in the game. While it may be beneficial to pad some of these Americans stats I see it as destructive to the game. Blowouts are not good for the game. They are of no interest to watch and they do not highlight the skills of players. Let me clarify that if this team had a Finnish QB in and was trying to get him experience and is throwing the ball I do not have an issue with that. But to keep the American QB in and all the imports is unsafe for them and limits opportunities for Finnish players. I do not want to have anyone think that I am overly critical of the coach for this team in his development of Finnish players. On the contrary he has developed an incredible number of Finnish players and has done a great job coaching. In fairness he did limit some of the playing time for some of the imports during the game but the issue is one of history as he so well pointed out to me. So many teams have been beaten so badly that it is the norm to do the same when things are turned around. This is also encouraged by the establishment of a points for and points against tie breaker in case of ties at the end of the season, an idea I think may be wonderful for soccer but does not work in American Football. My intention is not to single out this team either as other teams do the exact same thing, it has developed into a cultural phenomenon here and yet I still believe it hurts the game.
Last year we worked hard to develop a backup for Robert Johnson, our American QB, and Alexi Seppanen did a wonderful job for us in that role when we were up in games. We allowed Alexi to run the entire offense and gave him free reign, but the other American players were also out of those games. At that point I believe that when you have backups in and the other team does not stop you there are some issues for them to deal with as well in their preparation and execution so there is responsibility on both sides. When I coached in England we took the same approach and developed Paul Ashton and David Hughes as our backup quarterbacks. Ashton and Hughes got to see a lot of action and eventually became the Great Britain National team quarterbacks thanks to the coaching and mentoring they received from our American QB Rick Bolen.
As coaches we need to have a sensible approach to developing Finnish talent and giving them quality instruction and coaching. We also need to treat our sport as a practice community and realize that running up the score on opponents is not good for the sport. The average fan wants to see competitive games not lopsided affairs. If we want to develop the game in this country we must understand this and appeal to those fans. Why would anyone want to go to a game and pay hard earned cash to see one team destroy another 90-0 or some other ridiculous score? In the U.S. running up the score is frowned upon by most people in the profession and those who do not adhere to this ideal are looked upon with loathing and distrust. When you are up comfortably you put in your backups and allow them to develop their skills and have an opportunity to progress. Until we realize that we will always fall behind in developing Finnish talent.
References:
MacIntyre, A. C. (1984) After virtue: A study in moral theory (2nd ed). South Bend:
University of Notre Dame Press.
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