A football festival: Charlotte 49ers combine work, family time at practice

It’s a sunny, brisk Saturday morning in March, and the Charlotte 49ers’ Richardson Stadium is crackling with activity.

On the field, the 49ers are in the midst of the first scrimmage of their spring practice season. On the sidelines, a few hundred people – equal parts fans, recruits, family members — mingle and watch. Same goes in the stands. It’s also loud: Healy has music of all genres piped in from start to finish.

While the players are concentrating on what’s happening on the field, a few also do some socializing while they work out. That explains why kicker Jackson Vansickle is showing a boy of about the age of 3 how he boots the ball into a practice net.

The Saturday atmosphere is part football practice and part festival in the park. But it’s standard for Healy, the 49ers’ first-year coach who, at 34, is the second-youngest coach in the NCAA’s Football Bowl Subdivision.

He established this kind of atmosphere at Austin Peay, where he coached for three seasons before being hired in December at Charlotte. Healy took the Governors, at the time NCAA Football Championship Subdivision afterthoughts, from a winless season in 2016 to an 8-4 mark in 2017.

“To me, anybody who says high school football should be more fun than college, or that middle school should be more fun than high school, is completely missing the point,” Healy said. “You have to have fun and enjoy what you’re doing. You have more success if you enjoy doing what you’re doing.”

The 49ers are practicing three times a week this spring, leading up to the Green-White game April 13 in Richardson Stadium. The Tuesday and Thursday practices begin in the dark at 5:30 a.m.; Saturdays, however, start at 9 a.m. and conclude with a scrimmage.

Healy’s program is all access. He encourages fans to attend practices, and not just during the spring. Team meetings are open also, he said, to the public as well as the children of his assistant coaches.

Healy fosters a family-first atmosphere among his staff, which includes four coaches and a recruiting coordinator (Carter Crutchfield) who were with him at Austin Peay. As they did at Austin Peay, after watching film on Sunday during the season, the coaches’ families will come to the 49ers’ facility for dinner. Another day during the week will be devoted to a “date night” for coaches and their wives or girlfriends.

Among the youngsters who will be scampering around Charlotte’s practices and the field house are the Hicks brothers — Eddie V, 7 and Jayvion, 5.

“This is (Healy’s) deal — a lot of people think you can’t be a great coach and also be a great husband and father,” said Eddie Hicks, the boys’ dad and the 49ers’ cornerbacks coach. “He’s trying – no, not trying – he is combining the two. He feels like if everybody’s happy, that the harder the job, the better it is to be working for the team.”

But Hicks, who was on Healy’s staff for two seasons at Austin Peay, said it goes deeper than that.

“Unfortunately, today a lot of the guys we coach don’t have that in their life,” Hicks said. “(Healy) wants to show them that this is more than just being a coach for us. That when you’re done with college, this will help them see that you can be a great husband and father.”

Healy has made a point of introducing his wife, Emily, and the assistant coaches’ wives to the team and supporters at post-practice huddles in the middle of the Richardson Stadium field. After a few general words of encouragement and points of emphasis to the team – on this day it’s about ball security – Healy asks the players to each shake the hands of at least 10 people before heading to the locker room.

“They don’t understand that they’re working hard,” Healy said. “It’s not a grind. It’s good when the energy is really good. You mix that with attention to detail and execution, and you have a chance to be really good.”

Despite the potential for distraction, Healy said he doesn’t worry that the necessary amount of work needed to get done will get done.

“I’ve never felt that way,” Healy said. “I just feel like there are so many other really important lessons, even when it’s a little bit chaotic, our players see us be dads and husbands. I get a chance to spend time with my family and (the players) feel a part of it.”

Healy, however, finds himself somewhat distracted as he talks. He’s cradling his infant son Wynn, who is unhappy and needs to be handed off to Emily, who is standing at the ready, close by. There’s another Healy son, 4-year-old Eli, running around somewhere, as well.

“I know it gets chaotic, and I know it’s not normal for a 4-year-old to be sitting between you and me, maybe in a team meeting,” said Healy. “But that’s the way I want it to be. If anything, I want to make the mistake on the side of showing what a dad and husband can be like, versus if we can scheme somebody up the right way.”

After practice – and shaking a lot of hands – 49ers senior tailback Benny LeMay talks about the new atmosphere around the program.

“It’s exciting to have all these people around, and that can help you prepare for game situations” LeMay said. “You shake hands with people, you get to know them. Then you see them again at the game and you already know them.

“Coach is really trying to create a family environment. The coaches are all tight with each other and their families. That’s really building the family aspect for us.”

LeMay smiled.

“Now,” he said. “I want to go meet coach Healy’s son!”

This story was originally published April 4, 2019 at 2:53 PM.