To the Message Board Posters who support Vero Beach.

[Trelle]

Just saw this:
 

https://www.change.org/p/remove-the-controversial-coach-from-vero-beach-high-school?source_location=search

[JDHoss]

3 hours ago, Jambun82 said:

What about all of the procedural penalties throughout the game for Vero Beach? 

You need to be more specific, such as what penalties, when, and what was the situation. Did it cost Vero points? This game boiled down to Jankowski having as bad of a coaching meltdown as I've ever seen in the last 1:18. For him to see the film of FPC v Doc Phillips, and see the huge miscalculation that Mike Watkins made, and turn right around and make an even worse decision in a similar situation is mind boggling. 

[JDHoss]

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[JDHoss]

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[Trelle]

Just now, JDHoss said:

You need to be more specific, such as what penalties, when, and what was the situation. Did it cost Vero points? This game boiled down to Jankowski having as bad of a coaching meltdown as I've ever seen in the last 1:18. For him to see the film of FPC v Doc Phillips, and see the huge miscalculation that Mike Watkins made, and turn right around and make an even worse decision in a similar situation is mind boggling. 

My thoughts exactly, I work in the oil and gas industry and was at work watching this with some of the guys last night and was just telling them how another area team (FPC) had just blown their game in like fashion. The more I think and read about it the more I would like to see someone else take the helm. I think alot of the assistants are solid and don’t want to see them all leave I.e. I love coach Motta, but I also would love to see someone like one of my former teammates I played with at Vero, Zo Phillips take the reins.

[Drogo]

5 minutes ago, JDHoss said:

You need to be more specific, such as what penalties, when, and what was the situation. Did it cost Vero points? This game boiled down to Jankowski having as bad of a coaching meltdown as I've ever seen in the last 1:18. For him to see the film of FPC v Doc Phillips, and see the huge miscalculation that Mike Watkins made, and turn right around and make an even worse decision in a similar situation is mind boggling. 

Well Mike Watkins was on the VB staff and worked for Lenny so…

[JDHoss]

5 hours ago, MarkECannon said:

I’ve spoken to, texted with and read on message boards stating the same thing.  Practically everyone is in disbelief about Vero’s coaching decisions late in the 4th quarter.  I attended Vero’s semifinal and state final games. IMO,  Vero’s coaching made crucial misjudgments late in both games.

The Palmetto game should have been over early in the 4th quarter but Vero must have decided to pretty much shut down the high powered offense that led to a 2 TD lead.  At that point Palmetto had no answer for what Vero was doing.  Then Vero played right back into Palmetto’s style of play resulting in 2 OT’s with Vero fortunately pulling out the 1 point victory.

 Against Lake Mary I call into question sending the field goal kicker out to attempt an approximately 35 yarder in the rain.  The poor kid hooked it just like he did against Norland in the kickoff classic and Palmetto in the semifinal.  Yes, it was 4th and about 10 against Lake Mary but you have very talented receivers going against a tired and smaller secondary.  That is the main strong matchup Vero had in the game.  Of course the Vero final debacle was the mismanagement in the final minutes.  
 

Vero had a really talented team that came away one play short of and the 7A title and a perfect season.  You have to give a lot of credit to the Vero coaching staff for achieving this.

* Come to think of it, Vero had a good lead in the Norland kickoff classic game.  Norland came back to tie it leading to the missed field goal mentioned above.  
So I actually witnessed this pattern 3 times.

Yeah, I saw the Norland game too. Both kicks were basically longshots for him, and the odds of completing a 10 yard pass were far better. Even with that, this loss is squarely on Jankowski. 

[JDHoss]

2 minutes ago, Drogo said:

Well Mike Watkins was on the VB staff and worked for Lenny so…

True, and I really like Watkins and what he's done. Hopefully, he'll remember what happened and what Jankowski did and learn from it. I still can't wrap my mind around how someone with Jankowski's coaching record and experience botch that sequence so badly. 

[Jambun82]

2 hours ago, JDHoss said:

You need to be more specific, such as what penalties, when, and what was the situation. Did it cost Vero points? This game boiled down to Jankowski having as bad of a coaching meltdown as I've ever seen in the last 1:18. For him to see the film of FPC v Doc Phillips, and see the huge miscalculation that Mike Watkins made, and turn right around and make an even worse decision in a similar situation is mind boggling. 

Do you think that Vero Beach could have put the game away in the third quarter?  

[Jambun82]

6 hours ago, KeemD321 said:

The back to back to back penalties on the punt?

Yes, and several others as well. Do well-coached teams commit penalties like that in the 15-or so game in the season? 

[JDHoss]

13 hours ago, Jambun82 said:

Do you think that Vero Beach could have put the game away in the third quarter?  

Yeah, one more score could have put it away. 

[h8r]

know where the easiest place on the planet is to coach from is?  the bleachers, the couch, the bar.  til you are put into that situation, nobody knows what kind of pressure it is.  

whos to say that they line up to punt and in the pouring rain a bad snap, a missed catch on the snap(punters are not the best of athletes), a shanked punt, a blocked punt.  

giving up the safety, ran 10 full seconds off the clock, 

the squib to me was the part that i questioned more than anything, kick it high and deep, in the rain, let a kid look up in the rain drops to get the ball.  squib set up a chance to give them a chance to hail mary it.

again, til youve worn the whistle, sat in the chair, made all the calls, told the contingent what to do and how, we will never ever know what that pressure is like.  Ive flipped so many burgers off my grill in my life, but have no idea what it would be like to work at mcdonalds during rush hour and theyn need 75 of them right now.  

im gonna venture to say that coach feels terrible and is questioning everything right now and probably will for rest of his life.  firing him isnt the answer, thats knee jerk reaction.  did everyone forget that they were 14-0 before the game? after a season of not having one of the top 2028 qbs in the nation out for almost all of it, 9 or 10 games?  to throw a wr in at qb and not lose stride, defintely isnt a coaching blunder...i bet he has hugged more players and told more people he was sorry for how he coached than anyone will ever do in their life.  

fire the coach is always the answer, but how about catch the hail mary not knock it down?  did anyone say cut the kid that missed it?  or we should fire the kids who got back to back false starts on punt?

coach defintely didnt play reps saturday night, but it solely lies on him.  but does he get any credit for any of the wins?  heck no.

hypocrites....

hater out.

[MarkECannon]

h8r,

I respect your rant. 

I totally agree and have pointed it out many times.  I am a much better game coach from the stands and in front of a television than on the sidelines.  I coached youth football for 3 years at the historic but now defunct Ringling Redskins in Sarasota.  I had two good teams and 1 terrible team.  I received more criticism from parents and fans with my good teams than I did with my terrible team.

[KeemD321]

19 hours ago, Jambun82 said:

Yes, and several others as well. Do well-coached teams commit penalties like that in the 15-or so game in the season? 

Well those penalties were kinda odd because I didn't see the infraction at all the 2nd or 3rd time. 1st time maybe I gave a lil leeway cause maybe they saw something I didn't see. I thought I was tripping but the other 2 there was nothing obvious and the commentators were even scratching their heads cause there was nothing obvious 

[KeemD321]

2 hours ago, h8r said:

know where the easiest place on the planet is to coach from is?  the bleachers, the couch, the bar.  til you are put into that situation, nobody knows what kind of pressure it is.  

whos to say that they line up to punt and in the pouring rain a bad snap, a missed catch on the snap(punters are not the best of athletes), a shanked punt, a blocked punt.  

giving up the safety, ran 10 full seconds off the clock, 

the squib to me was the part that i questioned more than anything, kick it high and deep, in the rain, let a kid look up in the rain drops to get the ball.  squib set up a chance to give them a chance to hail mary it.

again, til youve worn the whistle, sat in the chair, made all the calls, told the contingent what to do and how, we will never ever know what that pressure is like.  Ive flipped so many burgers off my grill in my life, but have no idea what it would be like to work at mcdonalds during rush hour and theyn need 75 of them right now.  

im gonna venture to say that coach feels terrible and is questioning everything right now and probably will for rest of his life.  firing him isnt the answer, thats knee jerk reaction.  did everyone forget that they were 14-0 before the game? after a season of not having one of the top 2028 qbs in the nation out for almost all of it, 9 or 10 games?  to throw a wr in at qb and not lose stride, defintely isnt a coaching blunder...i bet he has hugged more players and told more people he was sorry for how he coached than anyone will ever do in their life.  

fire the coach is always the answer, but how about catch the hail mary not knock it down?  did anyone say cut the kid that missed it?  or we should fire the kids who got back to back false starts on punt?

coach defintely didnt play reps saturday night, but it solely lies on him.  but does he get any credit for any of the wins?  heck no.

hypocrites....

hater out.

I get what you're saying and I'm not saying he should get fired. But my opinion the only way taking the safety makes sense is if you don't squib it. 

Yes, it was raining but it was also raining the whole 4th quarter. There wasn't any issues with the snap during the 4th. They didn't have any issues with ball security. You have points with everything that could've went wrong with the punt. Yes all of that is very well true and say the worst possible outcome with the punt did happen. Only outcomes would've been short field for Lake Mary, punt return for TD, mishandled snap from punter resulting in fumble recovered for TD or the same result safety.  All hypotheticals can't change the outcome now. 

But let's go down the rabbit hole.

Say Lake Mary scored off of the punt if Vero couldn't run out the clock. They would still have to convert a 2 points. Giving Vero's D another chance to come up with another big stop. If they didn't. Oh well. The worst case scenario of that. They would've went into OT. 

That's really the biggest gripe I see people having. There wouldn't have been an issue or an uproar of taking the safety if the decision to do a squib kick was made. 

But outside looking in......it just appears it was all overthinking when they could've took a simple approach to to run it and see how much yardage you can get while taking time off the clock and flip the field. Also want to chime in about them not having their starting QB for the majority of the season. Their backup eventhough he's a WR was originally their starting QB before Champ got to Vero and moved positions for him. He's basically in the same mold as Malachi Toney that played for AHP. Always played QB but athletic enough to excel at WR

Just my 2 cents from an unbiased outsider

[Mike E]

I was there, made the mistake of walking out with about 4ish minutes to go when the deluge of water came. Vero was up and about to score. (they did not) I had seen more than enough football for one week. (so i thought) So, I missed the missed FG to the end.   There are a lot of people frustrated, perhaps rightfully so. I will send a gentle reminder that these are HS kids and HS coaches. If they were college or NFL coaches my take might be different. At this level not all coaches are all things.  Some are program builders. Some are good with the kids and get individuals better. Some are nothing more than father figures. Some are good game managers. And some are good a schemes. Some are good at more than one of these categories. Truly, I believe that none of them are masters of all. There are an elite few that ever get to that point and none of them are coaching HS. He got them to a level that program hadn't been in a REALLY long time. He should be lauded. More often than not, a HC change in HS puts the nail in the coffin of the program for a few years at a minimum. The correct assistant coach add(s) could help plug a perceived hole.

[h8r]

59 minutes ago, KeemD321 said:

I get what you're saying and I'm not saying he should get fired. But my opinion the only way taking the safety makes sense is if you don't squib it. 

Yes, it was raining but it was also raining the whole 4th quarter. There wasn't any issues with the snap during the 4th. They didn't have any issues with ball security. You have points with everything that could've went wrong with the punt. Yes all of that is very well true and say the worst possible outcome with the punt did happen. Only outcomes would've been short field for Lake Mary, punt return for TD, mishandled snap from punter resulting in fumble recovered for TD or the same result safety.  All hypotheticals can't change the outcome now. 

But let's go down the rabbit hole.

Say Lake Mary scored off of the punt if Vero couldn't run out the clock. They would still have to convert a 2 points. Giving Vero's D another chance to come up with another big stop. If they didn't. Oh well. The worst case scenario of that. They would've went into OT. 

That's really the biggest gripe I see people having. There wouldn't have been an issue or an uproar of taking the safety if the decision to do a squib kick was made. 

But outside looking in......it just appears it was all overthinking when they could've took a simple approach to to run it and see how much yardage you can get while taking time off the clock and flip the field. Also want to chime in about them not having their starting QB for the majority of the season. Their backup eventhough he's a WR was originally their starting QB before Champ got to Vero and moved positions for him. He's basically in the same mold as Malachi Toney that played for AHP. Always played QB but athletic enough to excel at WR

Just my 2 cents from an unbiased outsider

not saying you said he should be fired, but read the comments on the change.org thing, everyone and the cousin is saing fire him....bad deciisons to squib or not punt, agree.  is it a fireable offense, absoltuely not.  didnt know that baout the back up kid, heck of an athlete for sure.

[h8r]

spot on mike

[KeemD321]

54 minutes ago, h8r said:

not saying you said he should be fired, but read the comments on the change.org thing, everyone and the cousin is saing fire him....bad deciisons to squib or not punt, agree.  is it a fireable offense, absoltuely not.  didnt know that baout the back up kid, heck of an athlete for sure.

No worries, wasn't implying you were. Just was putting my take out there cause I definitely seen that all over as well. Plenty Vero fans responding off of instant emotion and apparently they had a similar issue pop up in the state semifinals that almost cost them that game. So it seems like it's just back to back frustration of similar situations but with the worst outcome. This is the first time they've made it to state in about 44 years. They've been stuck trying to make it over that hump of making it out of the region after always having great regular season records. So this seemed like this was the year to win it all for them

[Jambun82]

6 hours ago, h8r said:

know where the easiest place on the planet is to coach from is?  the bleachers, the couch, the bar.  til you are put into that situation, nobody knows what kind of pressure it is.  

whos to say that they line up to punt and in the pouring rain a bad snap, a missed catch on the snap(punters are not the best of athletes), a shanked punt, a blocked punt.  

giving up the safety, ran 10 full seconds off the clock, 

the squib to me was the part that i questioned more than anything, kick it high and deep, in the rain, let a kid look up in the rain drops to get the ball.  squib set up a chance to give them a chance to hail mary it.

again, til youve worn the whistle, sat in the chair, made all the calls, told the contingent what to do and how, we will never ever know what that pressure is like.  Ive flipped so many burgers off my grill in my life, but have no idea what it would be like to work at mcdonalds during rush hour and theyn need 75 of them right now.  

im gonna venture to say that coach feels terrible and is questioning everything right now and probably will for rest of his life.  firing him isnt the answer, thats knee jerk reaction.  did everyone forget that they were 14-0 before the game? after a season of not having one of the top 2028 qbs in the nation out for almost all of it, 9 or 10 games?  to throw a wr in at qb and not lose stride, defintely isnt a coaching blunder...i bet he has hugged more players and told more people he was sorry for how he coached than anyone will ever do in their life.  

fire the coach is always the answer, but how about catch the hail mary not knock it down?  did anyone say cut the kid that missed it?  or we should fire the kids who got back to back false starts on punt?

coach defintely didnt play reps saturday night, but it solely lies on him.  but does he get any credit for any of the wins?  heck no.

hypocrites....

hater out.

Does that logic about not second guessing the coach extend to game officials in your view? 

[Jambun82]

3 hours ago, Mike E said:

I was there, made the mistake of walking out with about 4ish minutes to go when the deluge of water came. Vero was up and about to score. (they did not) I had seen more than enough football for one week. (so i thought) So, I missed the missed FG to the end.   There are a lot of people frustrated, perhaps rightfully so. I will send a gentle reminder that these are HS kids and HS coaches. If they were college or NFL coaches my take might be different. At this level not all coaches are all things.  Some are program builders. Some are good with the kids and get individuals better. Some are nothing more than father figures. Some are good game managers. And some are good a schemes. Some are good at more than one of these categories. Truly, I believe that none of them are masters of all. There are an elite few that ever get to that point and none of them are coaching HS. He got them to a level that program hadn't been in a REALLY long time. He should be lauded. More often than not, a HC change in HS puts the nail in the coffin of the program for a few years at a minimum. The correct assistant coach add(s) could help plug a perceived hole.

I don't believe the players have anything to be ashamed of at all. 

[Jambun82]

4 hours ago, KeemD321 said:

Well those penalties were kinda odd because I didn't see the infraction at all the 2nd or 3rd time. 1st time maybe I gave a lil leeway cause maybe they saw something I didn't see. I thought I was tripping but the other 2 there was nothing obvious and the commentators were even scratching their heads cause there was nothing obvious 

What are you talking about? Are you claiming that the game officials made up the penalties? 

[Jambun82]

10 hours ago, JDHoss said:

Yeah, one more score could have put it away. 

Could better coaching decisions have put the game away earlier? 

[Ray Icaza]

On 12/14/2025 at 1:59 PM, Jambun82 said:

What about all of the procedural penalties throughout the game for Vero Beach? 

What about them??

[Jambun82]

13 hours ago, Ray Icaza said:

What about them??

Does that say anything about coaching to you?