Semoball

Making an impact: Perryville coach Blane Boss finds mentoring young athletes "fun" and rewarding

Perryville football head coach Blane Boss shouts to players as they run conditioning drills during a summer workout Wednesday in Perryville, Missouri.
Ben Matthews ~ Southeast Missourian

The Perryville football program hadn’t had much success when Blane Boss took over as the Pirates’ head coach prior to the 2017 season. And the brutally honest young coach didn’t make things any easier on the Pirate student-athletes.

“I don’t sugarcoat anything with our kids,” Boss said. “I tell them straight up what they need to do. I tell them we need to do this if we want to (meet goals).”

The strategy has worked. In the nine years before Boss’ arrival, Perryville won just 15 games. In the past two seasons, the Pirates have won 10 and very well may surpass that 15 total this autumn.

“Football is having a belief in yourself,” Boss said. “I’ve told our kids since I got here, the (successful programs) don’t have super-human kids, they just have kids who work hard, they show up to everything and put in the time.”

Passing on life lessons, not just ones applicable to success in athletics, is why the former Windsor athletic standout has made teaching and coaching his life’s mission.

Boss is entering his third season with the Pirates’ football program and next spring he’ll begin his tenure as the head baseball coach, as well.

“Coaching is something that I enjoy,” Boss said. “You get a chance to be a part of a kid’s life and influence them, hopefully, to do something great in their life.”

Boss and the Pirates spent a couple of hours on the practice field Wednesday working in preparation for the start of training camp next month, but it was something off the field that stuck with Boss following the workout.

A former Pirate he had coached two years ago returned to watch practice while he was on leave from the United States Marines and that made Boss smile.

“When kids come back just to talk to you,” Boss explained, “that means a lot. It is something where they want to come back and see you. It’s cool to see.”

As much as Boss is doling out tips on how to run, block or tackle, or as he will next spring on how to hit, throw and catch, the Pirate players are getting a lot more out of their experience under Boss than just athletic fundamentals.

Boss is a self-proclaimed “neat freak” and he read up on how the highly-successful New Zealand national rugby team, known as the “All Blacks,” handle themselves and he is similarly modeling his Perryville programs.

“We have (the players) take care of the locker room and weight room and keep it clean,” Boss said.

That not only applies to the Pirate facilities but on the road Boss said: “the locker room better be sparkling when we leave.”

Boss implemented a “Character Captain” program at Perryville and he often relies on the older Pirate players to maintain structure and discipline.

If a player is absent from a training session, Boss said a teammate will often reach out to him long before a coach has to. That is the culture that now permeates the Perryville program.

“Those captains,” Boss said, “it’s their job to make sure that their team is taking care of business. As coaches, we try to hold the players accountable as much as we can, but with the really good teams, the players, the real leaders on the team, they hold the players accountable.”

The love of mentoring young people isn’t just something that Boss sought in life, he also found it to be something that attracted to him to his wife, Erin Boss, who also coaches.

Erin was a multi-sport athlete at Herculaneum and now serves as the volleyball coach at Hillsboro and the couple often support each other through the challenges of their professions.

It remains to be seen just how many games the Bosses will each win this upcoming fall, but there is no doubt that their athletes will be better off for having spent time under each.

“There are a lot of jobs out there that people probably aren’t happy with,” Blane said. “Teachers don’t go into it knowing that they’ll become millionaires. They go into it knowing that they are going to impact a kid’s life and will be there for kids who need them.”

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