For the past eleven seasons, Winter Haven Football has been one of the most consistent programs you’ll find in the area and in the state for that matter. The Blue Devils have posted nine wins or better in eight seasons since Charlie Tate arrived in 2005 and if not for the forfeiture of six wins during the 2007 season, they would be sitting at a record of 100-28 during his tenure. As it stands, Winter Haven is 94-34 and that’s still good for a winning percentage of 73-percent for over a decade. Up until last season, the Blue Devils were on a steak of six-consecutive district championships as well.
That kind of winning sets a standard that many teams have little-to-no-concept of what it’s like to be expected to win virtually every time you set foot on the field–and consistently accomplish that goal as well. Since Tate’s son Will has arrived on campus in 2013, that standard–even though a ring has yet to accompany–has been met as Winter Haven has gone 37-8 the past three seasons winning at an 82-percent clip. As a starter the last two seasons, the Blue Devils are 18-5 and Tate has thrown for 3,218 yards, forty touchdowns and just ten interceptions.
The 5-feet-10, 180-pounder sat behind 1,400+ pass Darian Mills as a freshman, but took advantage of his potential straight out of the gates as a sophomore in 2014 throwing for 1,620 with nineteen touchdowns and six interceptions while finishing on Lakeland Ledger’s Second Team All-County Offense, and then followed that up by leading Polk County this past season throwing for just shy of 1,600 yards (1,598 to be exact) while adding twenty-one touchdowns and just four interceptions as a junior.
Simply put, you have to be a motivated individual–self-motivated at that–to endure your head coach also being your father. You also have to be motivated when your uncle is a head coach within the county and football as “they” say–is your family business. Tate’s motivation(s) are multiple however, and the “coaches son” is rapidly growing into “his own man” when it comes to becoming a leader for a program that sets a standard such as Winter Haven’s.
Tate’s first motivation, is to first-and-foremost be a good teammate. In order to get the respect of the guys alongside of you, you’ve got to take accountability for your own work ethic and drive. Without them paying attention to their signal-caller, Tate’s just another guy–but with them watching, Tate knows he has to be THE guy without letting that go to his noggin. “Number one would simply have to be my teammates. You want to work hard so that when they look over and up to you on Friday Nights that you’re not letting them down.” said Tate.
Calling football the family “business” has a little bit of nuance to it. It’s like coming from a family of teachers or firefighters or policemen and women. The word “business” isn’t necessarily applying to raw numbers and profit margins, but when your lives are synonymous with those professions and reputations are at stake–you can best-believe a profit margin of a different kind is at sake. It’s a personal-profit margin of sorts, aka family pride.
“Having my Dad as the head coach is definitely a motivation. Just the ability to make him proud and make my family proud. It’s not just my name that gets written in the paper, there’s several Tate’s out there that I represent through myself and I want to give respect to the name.” Tate said. As mentioned, Tate’s Uncle Richard is the new HC at Ridge Community after being at George Jenkins last season.
Tate knows that he also has to establish an identity beyond that of what the adults have done, and you can tell the importance of that principle is not lost.
“To go along with making sure the name gets respected, I’m motivated to create my own identity with that last name as well. Growing up–it was ‘coaches’ son’, but to finally be able to get to the school and be able to accomplish things for myself is a big motivating factor. Just to have that self-pride and not be in my Dad’s footsteps all my life is motivating. I give him all the credit now, but at the same time it’s nice to step out and be my own person.”
If football is a family business, then working with family is dicey at best if you’re not applying what we like to call, “The Godfather Principle”–aka “it’s business, not personal.” Except–you kind of–like, you know–HAVE to see them with regularity and inevitability things are going to spill over at family suppers on Sundays or whenever. Listen, Dad’s (and Moms, too) brought us into this world–and they’ll gladly try and take us outta here the moment we (as offspring) challenge that authority. Being your own person isn’t as easy as it seems when you don’t have a plan in-place to leave the football and family in neutral corners.
“It’s definitely a different relationship than most QB’s with their head coach. You get in trouble at practice, that’s gonna come home with you–the situation doesn’t really end and you kinda end up right back at it once you get home–all of that said, we do a great job of keeping things separate. We leave the football stuff at the school and leave the home life at home.”
Having the perspective at a young age that football isn’t forever usually translates into motivation to be secure beyond those hash marks–and that means being properly set-up in the classroom.
“My grades are obviously a motivation and obviously I want to go play football at the next level, but my grades are the most important, because if-and-when that day comes and football is over with, I’m not resting my whole life on football. Math comes easy to me, so it would be something to do with numbers–some sort of Accounting or business, something in economics or statistics.”
Quarterbacks may get the label of being charismatic and outgoing, but often times if they’re effective–they’re slightly–if not fundamentally robotic in-nature when it comes to preparation and game management. Tate’s ability with math and data processing definitely helps when it comes to decision-making during the game, but it starts with the motivation to succeed through preparation during the week.
“You have to come up to the line of scrimmage and know what you’re doing. I bet that with over 80% of our playbook, I know what I’m doing from top-to-bottom on that play before it even happens. That’s all based on preparation and film study and working as hard off the field as on it. You don’t want to get caught not knowing what’s going on–especially at the quarterback position. You have to be able to outsmart the defense playing that position and if you’re not prepared it’s probably not going to end well for you. That all comes from practice and the preparation for a game via practice during the week.”
Tate will be attending this Sunday’s e7 Spring in Lakeland and keeps it simple when it comes to his outlook. The numbers–especially last seasons’–speak for themselves. He’s only worried about what he can control, though. “I just want to go out there and showcase myself and prove that I belong with the best-of-the-best.”
The Blue Devils were out of the playoffs last season for the first time since 2004, and unequivocally and without question comes the motivation to correct the wrongs that happened during the course of last season. The Blue Devils have defeated Apopka and Miami Columbus in the past two seasons, but one of those was in spring while the other was the fall classic. While those wins are fine-and-dandy, Tate’s tone performs a 180-degree turn back towards the reason why he’s not going to lose any of his motivation any time soon.
“The biggest thing that sticks out to me, is that we have to finish. We lost a fourth-quarter lead to Kathleen in the district and we ended up losing by ten. We lost to Lakeland–another district game–by an inch on the last play of the game on a failed two-point conversion. That Lakeland game was a heartbreaker and then when you factor in the (Kissimmee) Osceola game–that game went back-and-forth and they took advantage of the way we collapsed late in that game. I think they won by nine or ten points, but every single we played this season we were in, we just have to finish.”