By RICHIE HALL
It’s been 20 years since John Hebert had the feeling of being the new coach at a program.
The longtime Carmel coach is now leading the Noblesville football team. So far, Hebert and the Millers are proving to be a solid combination.
Noblesville hosted a four-team scrimmage last week at Beaver Field, with teams from Pike, Fort Wayne Snider and Bloomington South also participating. Once the scrimmage was finished, Hebert spoke to The Reporter about his new team, and everything was positive.
“I’m really having a great time,” said Hebert. “I have a great coaching staff, 17 guys that are here every day and they’re pouring into these kids and they’re really good at what they do. And the kids are loving that. They’re loving the coaching and the attention and the feedback that they’re getting. So, when you have a great staff and you have a really eager team full of guys that are working really hard, it’s just a lot of fun every day.”
Noblesville and the other teams participated in seven-on-seven drills and game situations, providing some extra reps for not only the Millers’ starters and rotating players, but also for the junior varsity and freshmen players.
“I thought that they showed up today ready to be who they have shown us they are every day,” said Hebert. “I think that there’s been a disconnect where, they work hard, they’re great kids, they have great energy and spirit and we’re building a strong team. But, when it comes to showing up on the field, they’ve got to remember that you just need to be who you are all the time. That’s good enough for us and we’ll build off of that. And I think we did that today. I think they rose to that standard of how we want to show up on the field. It’s the same way we want to show up in the weight room every day.”
In addition to the scrimmage, Hebert said the team picked a leadership council last week. The 10 players with the most votes are on the council.
“We’re getting started with leadership training and confidence building,” said Hebert. “Everything that we add, everything that we do, the kids are there with their notebooks, taking notes and buying into what we’re asking them to do.
“I think they might be starting to see how it’s coming together. It could be hard for a 16-, 17-year-old to see how all this fits, that who you are as a person, as an individual, impacts who you are as a football player. By not just focusing on the football part, you are actually doing yourself a great service of development.”
Hebert said that culture is more important than football but is aware that the kids on his team are there to play football. The coach said that they can get players “to do a lot of things that they might not have ordinarily chosen to do, because it’s football-related. We do keep football at the center of what we’re doing, but it’s more just about integrity and character and showing up ready to be the best version of yourself, even if you don’t feel like it.”
The first official IHSAA practice for football is Aug. 4, with the first games to be played on Aug. 22. Hebert said the team is starting to see that “we have guys in the right spots.” Noblesville played a scrimmage at Crown Point in June, and after watching the game film, “we came out of that with about five or six guys that we changed positions, just felt like the pieces needed to fit that way.”
After last week’s scrimmage, Hebert said things could change again. But, the coach said the team feels like “we’re settling in at the spots we have guys and it seems like the right place, and now we can just really get down to getting better.”
Noblesville hosts North Central in a scrimmage on Aug. 15 before traveling to Mount Vernon Aug. 22 to open the regular season.