Sparks’ Coach Changes Losing Program and Emphasizes Hard Work

By Al Bruno,

When a young football coach takes over a hapless and winless football program and magically leads them to the top of the mountain literally, the NY state championship, it is momentous and special. It becomes even more magical and more special when it is a first for the South Park High School Sparks and a first for the city of Buffalo.

This is truly a rags-to-riches story about a sorely, slumping, city football program that found its leader, its “Spark,” and he guided the magical transformation, growing and grooming his players into first-rate competitors and champions. He prepared them, and then he marched them into the NY Class A winners’ circle and into Buffalo’s sports lore.

In the summer of 2008, South Park Sparks’ Coach Tim Delaney took over the reins of a plummeting football program that only managed to score a less-than-horrible, 12 offensive points for the entire, eight-game season in 2007. It was a noble and very challenging undertaking for the young, spirited coach, who was only 28 years old at the time.

South Park High School was in the midst of renovations and was being housed in a separate school across-the-city, the former Performing and Visual Arts High School, until demolition was completed. They had to use a rundown locker room with a deteriorated, plumbing system that smelled of urine and stale sweat.

To make matters worse, this Sparks’ team was given no additional lockers for team purposes. The lockers that held their books and lunches would also be home to their helmets, equipment, and jock straps. They changed in the hallways behind room dividers; moreover, they had no lined, football field, and they had to conduct practices in the outfield surrounding the softball diamond.

To add to all the facility start-up barriers that they had to overcome, South Park faculty members sneered about how bad the team really was and how turning around the mindset and culture of a ragtag, undisciplined group would be impossible for anyone.

Given the enormity of start-up difficulties, most coaches probably would have turned down the South Park coaching opportunity but not for the fully-committed and forward-thinking Coach Delaney. Instead, Coach Delaney accepted the scantily-resourced and most difficult assignment in the city: he buckled-his-chinstrap, rolled-up-his-sleeves, and went-to-work.

Coach Delaney envisioned the dream of a NY state championship, knowing full well that he would have to arduously journey and problem-solve the presenting trials-and- tribulations of a growing and contending, football program.

Looking back, Coach Delaney remembers and learned as a youngster, growing up in his native South Buffalo, that nothing good or worthwhile comes easy. He embraced valuable lessons from his father, Tim Delaney, Sr., especially about hard work and giving one’s best. “If you are not giving your best, then you’re cheating yourself and everyone around you,” Tim Sr. would often stress this point to a young, Tim II.

Tim Sr. would be a great inspiration for Tim II all throughout his life. In fact, Coach Delaney’s work with the South Park football team would be incomplete if it weren’t for Tim Sr. and his important and timely contributions. Coach Delaney credits his dad for being “the glue” of the South Park Football Sparks, holding it all together and never complaining.

Tim Delaney, Sr. would do an important set of tasks for Coach Delaney, including but not limited to lining the football field, fixing old football equipment, running to sporting goods stores for mouthpieces and pads, and picking up students, as needed. Coach Delaney’s winning success would not have happened without Tim Sr. and his mother, Tina Delaney, a die-hard supporter, who handled apparel orders as well as some fundraising projects.

His wife, Carrie Delaney, also a die-hard supporter, helps out often, filling-in where needed, in addition to working as a Spanish teacher full-time and parenting their future, Tim III. It won’t be long before Tim III is asked to work the sidelines with Coach Delaney. The Sparks’ success was, in effect, sustained because of an involved and engaging family – it is and continues to be a Delaney football affair.

It is extremely rare to find a young, urban coach that is tirelessly committed, all-year long, to coaching football and shaping his players into good citizens. Not only does he have the Delaney family working on the Sparks’ football campaign, but he, too, is involved in off-season, weight-training and after-school, football activities for his players. His dedication is admirable because he believes, at his very core, that success is based on hard work, tremendous effort, and doing one’s best: a lesson learned and reinforced to him by Tim Sr. throughout his life.

The off-season program for the South Park football program grew from nothing to what it is now. They only had a couple of barbells and some steel plates to work with at the beginning, but that would significantly change in the ensuing years when the program began to grow and eventually flourish.

Like clockwork, starting immediately after Thanksgiving Day in November, Coach Delaney opens the off-season, weight-training sessions four days a week, Monday through Thursday, 3 to 5 pm, going until the end of the school year in June. The coaching staff holds eight Saturday practices in January and February to prepare for a half-dozen

contests of seven-on-seven matchups against Buffalo and Western New York teams in the spring.

To spur more instructional focus and team unity, Coach Delaney requires his players to attend two, three-day camps, one in June and one in July. In July, for example, Coach Delaney has his players meet three mornings-a-week for weight-training and field practices in their final preparation for training camp in late August. Luck had nothing to do with their winning success.

Winning does not make for a great coach. Being a great role model and leader for student-athletes by teaching character and life lessons, caring about players, and coaching an athlete and not a sport are things that make for a great coach. Coach Delaney is a great, young coach not because of his winning, but because of his total dedication and commitment: he is still there, still persevering, and still imparting life lessons and football skills to his players.

Winning is the desired outcome of hard work, and “Football is hard game played by tough people. Hard work pays off,” emphasizes Coach Delaney to his players. Turning around a losing mindset is never easy, but it did happen, slowly and sequentially, it seemed, in stages for the Sparks’. Next, in Part 2, the winning in 2008, when Coach Delaney took over the reins.