It takes a team to achieve anything in sport and that’s as true for coaches as it is for athletes.
Tim Henderson was quick to credit his dedicated staff on the Foothills Eagles for him bringing home the Football Alberta Bantam Coach of the Year award for 2023-24.
“When head coaches win this award, it’s not just themselves,” said Henderson. “It’s all of the volunteers, the staff that’s around them that help. I’m honoured I won it, but it is a team effort.
“When you have a season like we did and see everyone come together, it’s definitely a team award.”
The team was tested during a turbulent 2023 campaign in which the Bantam Eagles were hit by a rash of injuries early in the season.
Foothills was only able to field a full 36-player roster in half of its games.
“Besides having the coaches, it was key players on our team that took up the leadership roles, they started having team meetings before practices,” the coach added. “They spoke up, not yelling or getting down on guys, but helping with experience if they felt their teammates needed it and they had those meetings at the right time, when the players needed it.”
Foothills rallied from a 1-4 start to a 3-5 finish en route to winning the Calgary Bantam Football Association Tier II championship and later the Football Alberta Bantam Tier III provincial title.
“One of the bonuses this year was having a coaching staff that didn’t lose their cool or fly off the edge, they were calm, cool and collected throughout the season,” he said. “We knew we would have some of our injured bodies back before the end of the year, so we were looking forward to that.
“It was a tight season, thankfully we just got those guys back for the playoffs to have a playoff run.”
The coaching staff, which went 10-12 deep, includes parent volunteers and recent alumni.
Henderson will be back coaching his seventh season as the head coach of the Bantam Eagles.
He previously coached at the Peewee level, earning the Football Alberta coaching award in that age group in 2018, and was a head coach of a Calgary Metro team at the 2023 Alberta Summer Games in Okotoks.
The Eagles are accepting registrations as of March 21 for spring evaluations which take place May 28-30 at Holy Trinity Academy which are then bookended by Wednesday night practices from April 17-June 26 at the Dr. Morris Gibson School field.
For more information on the Eagles, go to gofa.ca.
