Today’s interviewee is Cass coach Steve Gates, whose team defeated Ridgeland 42-14 last week. Cass is 5-0 for the first time since 2004. Gates, in his first season at Cass, had been Kell’s assistant head coach and co-offensive coordinator. He is a former University of Georgia offensive lineman.
Steve Gates, Cass head coach
1. Cass has struggled over the years, last making the playoffs in 2006. What attracted you to the Cass job? “Honestly, I wanted to go to program that has traditionally struggled and put my philosophy in place, implement my expectations and see what happens. There is a huge buzz in the county and community about the job that [Bartow County Schools superintendent] Dr. Phillip Page has done academically and athletically in all the schools at all levels. Implementing magnet programs in the high schools and new additions at all the high schools' athletic facilities, hiring nutrition and strength-and-conditioning coordinators in all the high schools are just to name a few. That type of positive energy combined with the location of Cass made it a place I wanted to go coach for a long time. The daily support this program gets from the principal Mr. [Steven] Revard, athletic director Dr. [Nicky] Moore and the G.O.A.T., athletic coordinator Coach [Bobby] Hughes is remarkable. Not a day goes by that Bobby Hughes doesn’t ask me what he can do to help this program. And when I mention something, it gets done.”
2. What do you feel that you and your staff have done that has made the most difference in improving the team? “Cass is a school that doesn’t have big-time ‘move-ins’ on a regular basis like other schools, so we have just taken the players we have, coached them up and given them an extremely high expectation level on and off the field. And this staff has not wavered from those expectations. You either conform and buy into the expectations, or you don’t play football or go play somewhere else. We only practice for a max of two hours, but those two hours are a tornado of reps, energy and positivity. We don’t even condition after practice. Our practices are our conditioning. We are starting to win games that we should win and winning the close games, which helps with confidence going forward. Time will tell how we react when we do stumble, because the teams we will be playing in our region are ridiculously good. I’m anxious to see how we react and see what type of character we currently have in the program. I tell the players all the time [that] it’s easy to walk to the parking lot after a win with your chest poked out, but how are you going to react when adversity hits and you stumble. Your true character will show.”
3. Tell us about your team. What have you done well to get you to this point? “Our defense is deep and experienced, meaning we have a bunch of seniors and juniors playing in the two deep. So we don’t go from a senior starter to a young backup who has never played on Friday nights. The backup is another junior or senior. That has shown up to be huge in the first five games. Coach [James] Gaddy and his staff have done a tremendous job with getting our defense prepared each week. On offense, we have struggled scoring points with installing a new offense during COVID and starting a freshman quarterback [Devin Henderson]. Those two things combined have not allowed us to do some things we want to on Friday nights just yet. As the players get more comfortable with the offense and Devin continues to get better, our offense should start to be more efficient. In my opinion, it’s a fun offense. We spread it out and throw the football. No insult to my wing-T buddies out there, but I still have nightmares from high school from the phrase ‘gap down backer.’ That’s not us. We will sling it, and we will start to sling it even more down the road. Another big plus we have right now is our kicking game. Punter Isai Romero and kicker Kaleb Speights have not only kept us in games but have won us games. Both are returning first-team all-region players, and both have even gotten better.”
4. You’re playing in the region of doom, 7-5A. How do you prepare your team mentally for that challenge? here may be nights when your team, or any team, is humbled. How do you manage/anticipate that? ''Fortunately for me, I worked for Shane Queen [at North Cobb] for a long time. He would look for the biggest and baddest teams out there and schedule them. So to me, I’m used to playing the Hillgroves, North Gwinnetts, Tuckers and Romes of the world. Which is very similar to the caliber of teams in our region like Cartersville, Calhoun and Blessed Trinity. We as a staff must make these players believe they can play with those type of teams. That’s it. We have great players, we have great coaches, we have incredible support from administration, we have a relentless community and parent base that have backed this program tremendously. We now have to put these players in the best possible situation to be successful. It is no secret, those teams in my opinion, are top 10 teams in the state in all classifications. They are machines, well-oiled and all gassed up. They should beat Cass right now based off of tradition. My job is to stop that.”
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