GHSF Daily's Four Questions feature historically poses the same questions to a different Georgia head coach each issue. This season, head coaches are being asked Four Questions tailored to current events. Today's interviewee is Roswell head coach Matt Kemper, whose team entered the top 10 this week after a 32-31 victory over then-No. 2 Walton. After consecutive 14-1 seasons in 2015 and 2016, Roswell fell to 3-8 in Kemper's first season as coach. The Hornets are now 7-1 and on the verge of clinching Region 4-AAAAAAA.
Matt Kemper, Roswell head coach
1. What did the Walton victory mean for your program? Did your team make a statement? "Friday Night was one of the most exciting games I have been involved in during 24 years of coaching. The atmosphere was incredible. There was a huge crowd, and GPB does a great job covering games in our great state. I am first and foremost very proud of our kids. There were many times that they could have lost hope and the game, but they showed amazing resiliency. I don't know if there was a statement from the game. Our team showed that when we do more things right than wrong, we have a chance to win. I hope it gave us confidence, but certainly not arrogance, and that it will help us down the road. The significance of the game to me was that it reinforced to our team that the things we are constantly telling them are right. It reinforces the core values in our mission statement that if we work hard together to build a team that is based on unity, discipline and the importance of every individual, we can become something bigger than the sum of our individual parts."
2. What's the difference between this Roswell team and the 2017 team? "There are too many differences to list. But the biggest is that these guys seem to be bought in. This team started forming last November after our first-round playoff loss to Hillgrove. We established very clear expectations for everyone in terms of the work they were going to do in the weight room and on the field. We had very clear expectations of what was required in the classroom and in the community. Our entire school has bought into those expectations, including our faculty, and we are fortunate to have great support from our administration."
3. You inherited a team last year that had reached consecutive state finals but suffered heavy graduation losses and went 3-8. What was that season like for you? Did you ever doubt yourself? "Two seasons like that is not hard to follow; it is impossible. 2017 was a very, very difficult year on me, my family, our staff and the players. But we had to work as hard as we could to ensure that the seniors on that team had the best experience we could provide them. As a coach in that situation, you cannot come in and say, 'What was being done is not how you should do it' or 'We are going to take a completely different approach.' There had been too much success, and kids are not going to buy what you are preaching just on face value. We had to let some things slide that we might not have agreed with as a staff and let the situation play itself out, all the while doing the best we could to do the right things to help those senior kids. Quite frankly, that was miserable being someone that you did not believe in for almost a year. I learned a long time ago form coach Hal LaFountaine on my first job at Maumee High School in Toledo, Ohio, that if you are not yourself, and if you do not live by the things you truly believe in, it is not going to work. So, when that season was over and we proved that way did not work for us, the kids were eager to find out the right way. We have a small staff now [six coaches on varsity], but they are great men and work really hard with the best interest of kids as their first priority, and we are all pulling as hard as we can in the same direction. As for self-doubt, I think any coach worth his salt wakes up with self-doubt every day. We are not going to dwell on it, though. We are going to come to work and do everything within our power to make our situation the best we can possibly make it."
4. You've beaten two currently ranked teams, Walton and Milton, but lost to a competitive but unranked team, Wheeler team. How good is this Roswell team? "The 2018 Roswell Hornets are like a lot of Georgia high school football teams. If we show up every day and work as hard as we can, maybe have a little luck and count on the guy next to us, we have a chance to win most Friday nights. We were very fortunate to beat two very good football teams. If we played each 10 times, I am not sure if we would be above or below .500. Our kids did exactly what we asked them in two very big games for us and we came out on top. We played a really good Wheeler team that can beat just about anybody when firing on all cylinders, and they were that night. Coach [Michael] Collins has done an incredible job over there for a really long time, and I applaud him and his team. We are not going to make excuse or place blame. As for the rest of Georgia AAAAAAA football, watching the scores on The Daily, it seems we have some really good teams in South Georgia and we also have some really good teams in Gwinnett County, which could probably be said every year. We are going to do all we can to get better today and play as hard as we can for this great school and this awesome community and hope that when the dust settles we can be a good footnote in the long history of Roswell football."
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