Browns legend Phil Dawson has advice for former NFL players coaching high school football

Editor's note : This is the third part of a series about former NFL players coaching high school football . The impetus for the series is two former Summit County stars who made it to the league — St. Vincent-St. Mary graduate Doran Grant and Nordonia graduate Jason Trusnik — debuted as high school head coaches in August. STVM hired Grant in December, and Strongsville hired Trusnik in February. The series will unfold throughout the 2024 season. This installment explores how ex-Browns kicker Phil Dawson has adjusted to a transition similar to the ones Trusnik and Grant are making.

Two years ago, Browns legend Phil Dawson embarked on the same coaching mission Jason Trusnik and Doran Grant have accepted.

By now, all of them know firsthand turning around a high school football program isn't easy, even for coaches who played in the NFL like they did.

In January 2022, Dawson landed a job coaching Hyde Park in Austin, Texas. The Panthers had gone 0-10 in 2021 before improving to 8-3 in Dawson's first season at the helm. They finished 5-6 last season and are 2-1 so far this year.

Dawson kicked for the Browns from 1999-2012, and one of his many former teammates is Trusnik, a Nordonia High School graduate who arrived in Cleveland in 2009 as part of the Braylon Edwards trade with the New York Jets and stayed through the 2010 season.

Read part 1 here: Years after Browns and Ohio State, Jason Trusnik and Doran Grant are head coaches in high school football

Read part 2 here: Doran Grant carries lessons from great coaches into debut at helm of St. Vincent-St. Mary

How are the Strongsville and Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary football teams doing midway through the 2024 OHSAA regular season?

Strongsville hired Trusnik as its head coach in February. The Mustangs went 3-8 last year, and they're 2-3 midway through the 2024 Ohio High School Athletic Association regular season.

In December, St. Vincent-St. Mary hired Grant, an Akron native, STVM graduate and former Ohio State national champion cornerback whom the Pittsburgh Steelers drafted in the fourth round in 2015. The Fighting Irish went 5-6 last season, and they're 1-4 so far this year.

Before the Browns inducted Dawson into their Legends program Sunday, the franchise's all-time leader in successful field goals explained what he has learned from his recent coaching experiences and what he would tell other retired NFL players who are guiding high school teams.

“I think most guys coming out of the league obviously are going to have a pretty high-level football IQ, and I think the tendency is to make the player fit into the scheme,” Dawson said last week on Zoom. “And you've got to recognize you're not dealing with NFL guys that can pretty much do anything you ask them to do.

“My advice and what I've had to learn is to figure out who do we have, what can we do and then fit the scheme around the player. A term I use all the time with my staff is, 'Where are we and how do we get better?' It really doesn't matter where we quote 'should be.'

“That's a waste of time kind of whining about that. 'We should be able to do this. We should be able to do that.' Well, it doesn't matter. You're not there yet. So where are we? How do we get better? And that requires kind of a player-centric focus.”

A graduate of Lake Highlands High School in Dallas and the University of Texas, the 49-year-old Dawson invoked an iconic Cowboys quarterback to illustrate his point.

“Troy Aikman, why did he transfer from Oklahoma and go to UCLA [in 1986]? Because Oklahoma ran the triple option, and Troy Aikman's not a triple-option quarterback,” Dawson said. “That's a perfect example. You've got to build your scheme around what your players can do, and I think that's tough.

“I know it was for me coming from the highest level with all the elaborate and X's and O's. You've got toys to play with at that level. At the high school level, you don't have as many toys, yet you still have a job to do. So build everything you do around who do you have, what can you do and fit the scheme around the player.”

Strongsville football's Jason Trusnik and STVM's Doran Grant discuss their approaches to coaching X's and O's on the high school stage

Trusnik, 40, and Grant, 31, are aware of the challenge. In the buildup to this season, both of them acknowledged avoiding overcomplicated schemes would be important to instructing their players.

“Sometimes, but I also think it's just what you teach them, they're going to learn,” Trusnik said. “It's new for them, but the concepts across the board — everybody plays Cover 2, everybody plays Cover 3, everybody plays man — and you're going to have these tweaks offensively, defensively. So I think it's just [primarily about] teaching them more of the fundamentals and techniques.”

“It's not a completely different ballgame in college or the NFL. It's the game, just at its highest level,” Grant said. “So [the key is] just letting them understand that this is the game, and then you slowly but surely [implement] the nuances and those things where it's maybe a little bit more high level, a little bit more complex or advanced. You just weave them in there and make it simple for them.”

Dawson is a football junkie who studied much more than special teams during his 20 NFL seasons — 14 with the Browns, four with the San Francisco 49ers and two with the Arizona Cardinals. Those habits have paid off lately.

“I found myself sitting in offensive meetings, learning from NFL offensive coordinators. I'd go sit in defensive meetings and ask questions and was always trying to learn just 'cause I loved football,” said Dawson, who signed a one-day deal to retire as a member of the Browns in 2019 . “Little did I know that all those experiences kind of built up the knowledge base, so that when I was able to step into being a head coach, I halfway knew what I was doing on offense and defense. So it's been a lot of fun. It's a challenging job, but it doesn't feel like a job to me.”

Cleveland Browns Legends club inductee Phil Dawson details his motivation for coaching high school football in Texas

Of course, coaching high school sports is about much more than wins and losses. An “opportunity to build a relationship with your players” drives Dawson as much as anything, he explained. Plus, coaching high school football is in his bloodlines.

“My granddad was a high school football coach,” Dawson said. “Dad was a great player in his own right. So I grew up around the game, and as early as I can remember I just wanted to play football. And then as I fell in love with the game, when I got my chance to play, I started thinking about this coaching deal. My high school coaches were absolutely instrumental in getting me started, and the lessons they taught me were the foundation to which I built a career upon.

“I personally experienced the impact a high school coach can make. [I'm] super honored and thrilled that I got a chance to obviously to play in college and the NFL, and those are different and they have their pluses and minuses as well. But when it came for time for me to figure out what was next after my playing days were over, that coaching bug kind of got me, and I just knew I wanted to go back to that high school level and have an impact on and off the field.”

Nate Ulrich can be reached at nulrich@thebeaconjournal.com. On Twitter: @ByNateUlrich .

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Browns legend Phil Dawson has advice for former NFL players coaching high school football