Back in May 2006, when John Messinger was named the football coach at South Charleston High, the school system knew what it was getting.
The Black Eagles' players probably didn't.
Messinger never had been a head coach. When Vern Redman retired after a 9-3 season in 2005 that had stopped a decade of non-winning autumns at SC, the talent was already there among the Black Eagles.
Something was missing, however. So, then-SCHS Principal Bill Walton and Redman, who also was the athletic director - and decidedly old-school guys - decided to go for a bear of a man who was known mostly for his plethora of powerlifting titles.
Bear Bryant, Messinger wasn't.
"Put me one-on-one with any other head coach and they will out X and O me," he said back then. "But no one can out X and O my staff."
Four years later, it's pretty much the same - but then it's not. On Saturday afternoon, South Charleston (12-1) will play for a second consecutive Class AAA state championship, against unbeaten Brooke at Wheeling Island Stadium.
No Kanawha Valley Class AAA team has played in consecutive finals since Capital in 1995 and '96. No valley team has won back-to-back, big-school crowns since Charleston High's three in a row, with a 30-0-2 record, from 1968-70.
Ask Messinger - as I did Thursday in his coaches' office at SCHS - whether he had any idea that the Black Eagles could soar so high so soon under his guidance, and he doesn't really have an answer.
His goal wasn't a 31-9 record in four years, or 28 wins in the last 29 games, with only an 8-6 loss to Capital this season muddying things. And don't expect the Black Eagles to be grounded next season. They'll have seven starters back on offense, eight on defense.
"What we are obligated to do, as coaches, is to see that we are successful on the football field," Messinger said. "These kids and their families deserve for this to be a good experience."
Messinger, 56, used to go deep into the ground as a lab technician and equipment manager in the coal business. Now, he's mining the young men on his football team, but not all really dig the guy who calls himself, "really old-school, Neanderthal at times, really."
Consider this 2009 Black Eagle team. It started back in the summer weight program with 62 players. There are only 42 left.
Messinger could dabble in play-calling or sideline second-guessing, but he insists that his coordinators, Donnie Mays (offense) and Mike Sauvageot, are more qualified than he to design and dissect the Black Eagles and their opponents.
Forget X and O. The letters Messinger finds more important are E and double D - the underpinnings of the program, really.
"Energy ... devotion ... discipline," Messinger said.
"Back when Vernon and Bill came to me and said they wanted me to take the job, I told them, 'Look, if there's someone more qualified, then hire him, and don't hesitate to do it. I'm not going away with anything against anybody. I'll still want to be part of South Charleston football.'
"I told them if they wanted to solely to base their decision on Xs and Os, then they might be making the wrong choice, because until Vernon brought me back into the sport here in 2000, it had been 30 years since I was really in it."
Messinger admits he didn't have all the right answers. His first notion was to make sure his players were good students, period.
"My philosophy changed really fast," the Clarksburg native said. "I figured it out that they needed to be good sons first, then good citizens, and then good students. And if they accomplish those three, then they are going to be good football players."
It surely didn't hurt that Messinger literally bulked up the program by insisting that the Black Eagles show more devotion to weightroom work. For example, title or no Saturday, the SC football players will be back lifting Monday at 2:30 p.m.
Messinger likes to talk, which is good, because "a lot of being a head football coach, even at the high school level, is being a bit of a politician. You have to be able to sell yourself, and your program, first to your players, then to your assistants, then the school administrators and to your community and fans. That has to happen.
"And I think the best way to be successful is to be who you are."
And what is Messinger?
"What I am, sometimes, is a bit of a loose cannon," he said, "and I can understand, I'm sure at times that I'm an administrator's nightmare because I'm so old-school. I'm stubborn, and I'm hard-headed. But ultimately, all of those things come as a result of, 'How do we make this thing better?
"How do we make this thing work, and successful for our kids.'
"If I had to describe me as a coach, the words I'd use are 'mentor' and 'motivator,' with football X and O knowledge. There are head coaches, all over this country, who insist on calling every shot. We have guys that know more about it than me to do that."
Messinger tells his players that he "might get mad at them, and gosh knows I do, but I'll never stay mad with 'em, and I don't.
"And I can tell you that these young men have done a much better job adjusting to me and my old-school ways than I have adjusting to their ways.
"Maybe that's one denominator that's taken us to the point we are."
What Messinger was saying is that winning isn't as important if it isn't a byproduct of something more significant.
Lifting a high school program is one thing. Lifting people and their attitudes can be much heavier stuff.
