There's a scoreboard at every football game.
Montgomery Catholic football coach Aubrey Blackwell thinks his players need to learn not to live by it.
That doesn't mean Blackwell doesn't care about winning. He does.
Blackwell knows the expectations that come with coaching football in Alabama, and he knows coaches ultimately are judged by what happens Friday night. But after more than a decade in coaching, Blackwell has become increasingly concerned with another scoreboard — the ones players carry with them long after their playing days are over.
“Everybody's got a scoreboard,” Blackwell told the Montgomery Advertiser. “But what does your scoreboard really read?”
That question gets to the heart of how Blackwell views coaching in 2026.
He doesn't believe today's high school athletes are fundamentally different from the kids he coached when he entered the profession in 2010. What has changed, he said, is everything surrounding them.
For the Montgomery Advertiser's Week 2 Coaches Corner, Blackwell discusses the changing world around high school athletes.
High school athletes haven't changed, it's what they have access to
Social media, recruiting, specialization and the pressure to play on the best team. The expectation that playing time should lead to exposure, and the constant evaluation of a player's athletic ability — and, increasingly, his value. A high school athlete can now have his highlights, statistics, recruiting profile and social media presence evaluated before a college coach ever meets him.
Blackwell sees that reality firsthand.
College coaches can look at a prospect's social media, academics, Hudl film, camps, likes and reshares. Recruiting has become an increasingly visible part of the high school experience, and players can feel as if they are always building — or protecting — an athletic résumé.
That can make it difficult for teenagers to separate who they are from what they do. And that, Blackwell believes, is where coaches have to step in.
“The key word to that is consistency,” Blackwell said.
For Blackwell, that means structure and accountability. His players should know what is expected of them when they walk through the door, but they also should know that a mistake doesn't redefine them.
He gave an example that says a lot about his philosophy: A coach can be angry about a player's decision without being angry at the player.
“I can be upset with somebody's decision, but it doesn't change who that person is,” Blackwell said.
That's an important distinction in an environment where one bad post, one bad game or one recruiting decision can feel permanent.
Blackwell tries to teach his players a different way to look at it.
“It's never about the play that you're in,” he said. “It's about the next one that you're doing. It's about that next snap. And in our life as men, it's the next day.”
Football provides an easy metaphor.
A quarterback throws an interception, the defense gives up a touchdown, a receiver drops a pass, or a player loses his starting job. There is always another snap.
Blackwell wants his players to understand that life works the same way.
Sports isn't the measurable in an athlete's life
Blackwell said there are fewer people around athletes who are willing to tell them when something needs to change. Instead, some of the people surrounding young athletes have their own interests — recruiting services, NIL opportunities, social-media exposure and everything else that has grown around the modern athlete.
That makes the people in a player's life matter even more.
Every kid, Blackwell points out, graduates high school. Not every kid becomes a college athlete.
So how does a high school athlete respond to adversity and change? Those lessons, Blackwell believes, matter more than a recruiting ranking.
In a culture increasingly built around measurable production, Blackwell wants his players to understand that value isn't always measurable. And perhaps that's why he doesn't ultimately define his coaching career by championships.
“My high school football record will not enter the gates of heaven,” Blackwell said.
Instead, he thinks about the young men who have come through Catholic. Some played college football. Others went into the military, medicine, ministry, business or other careers. Some are simply building lives away from the football field. Those are the players Blackwell considers part of his legacy.
That's the scoreboard Blackwell is really talking about. The one that doesn't show up on Friday nights.
The one that asks whether the kid who walked into the football program became a better teammate, a better son, a better husband or father, a better man.
Jaeden Day covers high school sports, Alabama State football and Auburn recruiting for the Montgomery Advertiser/USA Today. You can find him on X at dayjaeden12, or reach him at JDay@montgome.gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Montgomery Catholic's Aubrey Blackwell on noise surrounding high school athletes