Private Coaching Industry Growing Even More During Pandemic: Part Two

High school and college football players are turning to private coaches more and more these days, and that was before the pandemic shut down spring practice and took players away from direct contact with their coaches.

On Tuesday, we shared Sports Illustrated's report from Ross Dellenger on the growing world of private coaches who work with high school football players to improve their skills, often for many years before those players ever becoming college recruits. 

Current Vanderbilt freshman quarterback Ken Seals has been working with quarterbacks coach Ryan Roberts who runs RRQB Training in the Dallas area for the last eight years since Seals was in 5th grade. 

We spoke with Roberts about his work with the young freshman via text, and Roberts had this to say of his protege. 

 "As an inexperienced little 5th grade QB, I made it clear to Ken that we weren't training just to ''get better''...we were training to be ''the best''. He took that to heart from day one and ran with it."

Seals has shown the willingness to work hard to develop his skills, according to Roberts. 

"Over the past ten years of training QB's privately, I've never seen a kid with as much drive and passion to compete as I have in Ken. Some coaches might call it a ''competitive nature'' or the ''it factor',' but Ken undoubtedly possesses it."

While most of the credit for Seals earning a D-I scholarship goes to the player for the work he put in, Seals' father, Robert Seals, has high praise for the creation of Roberts. 

"Ryan is the best example of a Christian role model and QB Coach we could ever hope to find," said Robert Seals. "Ken started with Ryan early in Ryan's QB training days, and now Ryan has several D1 QBs and some of the very best high school QBs in Texas... he's he's an incredible guy." 

The younger Seals comes to Vanderbilt with the reputation of a winner as a high school quarterback in the football-crazy state of Texas. That reputation is what Commodore fans are hopeful this freshman can produce on West End. 

"I truly believe special things happen when a young man with God-given talent merges his natural skills with an unwavering work ethic," said Roberts of Seals. 

The talent is there, along with the work ethic. All that is remains for Seals and the Commodores are to find results on the field this season.   

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