Back to His Roots - Introducing Seneca Valley's New Head Varsity Football Coach, Don Barclay

“Seneca Valley has always been home to me,” said Don Barclay, head varsity football coach. In this episode, Coach Barclay, reflects on his journey from a student-athlete at Seneca Valley to his collegiate career and eight seasons in the NFL. Now back to where it all began, Coach Barclay shares his vision for the football program, and how he’s working to build a culture of commitment, resilience and community pride, setting a foundation for long-term success.

IN THIS EPISODE, WE WILL REVIEW

• An overview of Coach Barclay's background, including his time in the NFL
• Offseason training
• Coaching staff
• Game preparation, both physically and mentally 
• Overall goals for the season and organization

Overview

SPECIAL GUEST
Mr. Don Barclay, Seneca Valley's Head Varsity Football Coach

Mr. Barclay, a 2007 Seneca Valley graduate and former NFL player, brings both experience and hometown pride to his new role as head varsity football coach. After a standout collegiate career at West Virginia University and eight seasons in the NFL, he returns to his roots with a passion for developing a program that values academics, athletic growth and community involvement. Coach Barclay plans to emphasize speed, quickness, and agility on the field while fostering academic excellence and character off it. A dedicated husband and father of three, he is proud to raise his family in Seneca Valley and give back to the district that shaped him.

Transcript

FULL TRANSCRIPT (with timecode)

00:00:02:26 - 00:00:12:04
Welcome to Voices, a national award-winning podcast brought to you by the Seneca Valley School District. This is Jeff Krakoff. 

00:00:12:06 - 00:00:17:29
Jeff Krakoff: Today I'm talking with Seneca Valley head football coach Don Barclay. Thanks for joining us today. 

00:00:18:10 - 00:00:19:28
Don Barclay: I appreciate you having me, Jeff. 

00:00:20:00 - 00:00:34:23
Jeff Krakoff: Sure. So so let's just start with the basics. I know you played football and other sports at Seneca Valley. Kind of walk us through your your journey as a player, as a coach, and kind of bring us from where it started to where we are today. 

00:00:35:02 - 00:01:00:06
Don Barclay: Yeah. So I mean, I grew up, I was a Cranberry resident my whole life, grew up here and went to school at Seneca. My whole time I was a graduate of '07. Um, and family still lives here today. Uh, I moved back here after I was done playing in the NFL and was proud to come back here. It's a great area. It's booming. And, uh, you know, I think everyone's embracing it at this point right now. Everyone's having a good time in my family. 

00:01:00:14 - 00:01:09:27
Jeff Krakoff: Okay, so when you left Seneca Valley, tell us a little bit about your your college playing experience and walk us through your your years in the NFL. 

00:01:10:09 - 00:02:23:09
Don Barclay: Yeah. So I went on after after Seneca Valley, I went to WVU. Uh, I redshirted there, so I was there for five years. I was I started for three whole seasons there. I got in a little bit my redshirt freshman year. So that was a good, good opportunity. Just give me some experience. And to be honest with you, I was, uh I knew there was an opportunity. I wasn't a high expected draft pick. I had a chance, like a lot of kids do. Um, and basically, I made the most of it. I mean, I was undrafted. I, uh, talked with my agent and just what the best opportunity was. When you're running drafted, you could pick where you want to go. You don't you don't have to go to where you're drafted. And, um, and at the moment, the Green Bay Packers were pretty thin on the line. Um, they give their undrafted guys a pretty good opportunity or, you know, his equal opportunity as some of the later round draft picks. Um, and I made the most of it. Luckily, I was in the right place right time I made it. I started, uh, eight games in my rookie year, started all the games my second year. Then I ran into a couple speed bumps and had a couple injuries and just tried to stay. Stay in the league as long as I can. So I lasted six years. 

00:02:23:11 - 00:02:31:09
Jeff Krakoff: Okay. That's awesome. Um, so how did you end up at Seneca Valley for this being your your inaugural season as head coach? 

00:02:32:09 - 00:03:14:21
Don Barclay: Yeah. So when I was done playing in the NFL, um, you know, a couple of my offensive line coaches along the way wanted to see if I'd explore some coaching. I would have loved to. The only thing is, I mean, being quite honest, you don't have a life and coaching in the NFL, coaching in college. And I got three kids right now. Um, I wanted, you know, just with the opportunity in the, uh, career ahead in the NFL, I wanted to give back to my kids, my family, the time that I missed. And so I did that, um, I always had a passion for coaching. I think the best way to do it is at this level I'm at now. So I thought no better place than Seneca started here two years ago. 

00:03:14:26 - 00:03:23:27
Jeff Krakoff: Okay, so looking at the coaching staff, there's another Barclay I noticed Chip Barclay. Who's your your dad, right? 

00:03:24:06 - 00:03:25:09
Don Barclay: Correct. Yes. 

00:03:25:11 - 00:03:41:03
Jeff Krakoff: And he's coaching receivers. And your offensive coordinator, Donny Hall, is also an SV graduate. Tell me a little bit about what's that connection with other people that are close to you. What's that mean for your staff? What does it mean for the team? 

00:03:41:14 - 00:04:29:09
Don Barclay: Yeah. So crazy enough. I mean, Donny, there's a bunch of SV grads, um, Donnie Hall, Rob Densmore was a 1993 grad, uh, EG Sip was a grad, Jake Stevens, Gabe Miller. And, uh, trying to think who else if there was a I think that's it. But I mean, kind of what I went through diving into kind of another subject. I wanted to get guys back, that it really means something to, um, if you grew up here, you kind of know the dynamics. If you went through this program, you know where it can be and where it hasn't been in the past. So I wanted to get guys that, you know, knew football. They've had success here. They had success maybe playing somewhere else and they could bring all that back like I'm trying to do and just take this program off to a different level. 

00:04:29:12 - 00:04:44:23
Jeff Krakoff: Okay. So you're named the new head coach. You know, everything starts with the off season preparation and training. Tell me a little bit about how you approached, you know, the the conditioning and everything in the offseason to get the team ready for the first season? 

00:04:45:00 - 00:05:35:16
Don Barclay: Yeah, it was it was probably the most important things taking this job. Um, and, you know, no knock on anyone here in the past. I mean, it's like any, any new coach is going to say that they're they got to change things. So they got to make this better. Um, being from here, playing here, there is a level of intensity or just toughness that you do have to change here. And, and I think that's just, you know, I've told a lot of people this, you know, it's Seneca. There is a lot of things. You know where people like to hunt fish. They want to go boating. Camping, I get it, and trust me, I want people to do everything. But come football season, come training in the summer. Like, you can't be great unless you put that time in and it's got to be important for them. So I think the guys were really committed this summer and they put the time in. 

00:05:35:28 - 00:05:55:24
Jeff Krakoff: Okay, so when you approach offseason, I imagine you'll have to tell me that you can either look at very specific things like strength, speed, you know, if it's an offensive lineman, footwork, hands or it could be big picture. Let's build a culture, build a team. How did you approach the offseason? 

00:05:56:02 - 00:06:41:07
Don Barclay: Yeah, we we went to, uh, 5:45 a.m. lift. That's what we did. We started that back in February. Um, we did that four days a week. We gave them one day off on Wednesday. So they, you know, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday they did it. And then there was two days. They came back in the afternoon just to do some film time, meeting time. So it wasn't just all lifting, they were still learning. We had to implement offense and defense completely new. So guys were great. Multi-sport athletes were great as far as attending those as well, the best they can. So it was nice to see a full buy in. I think we could do even better as the years to come. And I think these kids understand now what the what the commitment level is. 

00:06:41:12 - 00:06:51:16
Jeff Krakoff: Got it. So you mentioned new offense, new defense. Are you able to share just a couple of things on each side of the ball. What people can expect might be different. 

00:06:51:20 - 00:07:42:05
Don Barclay: Yeah. I mean, you know I feel like a lot of people nowadays on offense run the run a spread offense, whether you're a zone scheme or, you know, you know, your change ups can be a gap scheme. Change up here and there or pulling a guard or two. Um, we really Seneca hasn't run a lot of RPO plays in the past. Um, we implemented it this year. We got a quarterback that could do it. And Andrew Loebig, he could use his feet as well. So when you could have a guy that's a triple threat, you know, it makes stuff a lot harder for defenses. And we're trying to execute that. As far as on defense, we we do run A44. Uh, they didn't run that last year. So just, you know, little tweaks and stuff that these kids are trying to learn. And, you know, it doesn't happen overnight. It will come though. So we feel good about it. 

00:07:42:07 - 00:07:54:21
Jeff Krakoff: Okay. So you know, a lot of preparation is on the physical side getting stronger and faster. But tell me a little bit about how do you and your staff prepare your players mentally for the season. 

00:07:55:02 - 00:08:46:20
Don Barclay: You know, that's an interesting question. We, uh, we've done a lot with these guys as far as meeting with them, uh, whether that's in groups. What say the seniors, uh, say it's the underclassmen, say it's one-on-one meetings just to instill leadership in these kids. Uh, some kids have reached out to us and just, you know, question themselves or question like, how do I be a better leader? And I think that's the biggest thing that you could help kids out with nowadays. Um, and we've been great with that. You know, guys have reached out to multiple coaches. We've showed them different aspects and different opportunities to take advantage of those times. You know, if this happens, this is how I would react or this is what I did. And and they're growing on that. Um, you know, there was a a little problem at first and our team wasn't the most vocal. They won the lead by example. But I think as time has gone on they've changed that. So. 

00:08:46:22 - 00:09:02:16
Jeff Krakoff: Okay. So do you have any longer term goals I know for the season right. It's win as many games. It's it's installed the offense defense and those kinds of things. But years down the road what are your big picture goals where you want to take the program? 

00:09:02:22 - 00:09:51:23
Don Barclay: Um, I mean I think long term goal is it's definitely, you know, win a WPIAL, win a state title. Um, if you're not believing that, then you know something's wrong with you as a coach. But obviously there's a lot of steps to take along the way. I think we did a I think that we did a great job this year by combining the youth organizations getting those couple of the youth teams to run our offense and defense, getting the middle school to run our offense and defense. I mean, if you're going to be successful, you get to train it from the bottom up. So I think that was a that was a big step that we that I implemented this year. And there was a lot of people in line that helped that out. It wasn't just me, um, including, you know, Heather Lewis, including a bunch of people that volunteer their time down at the youth level that brought those two together. And that was huge. 

00:09:52:01 - 00:10:08:09
Jeff Krakoff: Okay. So just two kind of random things I want to ask you about that, looking at your history and your Wikipedia page, uh, the Pittsburgh Steelers have a new quarterback this year named Aaron Rodgers. What do you know about him. Because you both played for the Packers. 

00:10:08:23 - 00:10:56:03
Don Barclay: Yeah it was I mean like I said my upper I was in Green Bay for six years. Um I was it was a it was a great experience. I mean, I had a lot of good times. I played a lot of games. And he was great. I mean, he he was the all star of our team, obviously. And, um, you know, everything ran through him. You had to keep him healthy and and truly, he he was great as far as taking care of guys having our backs in the media. Um, never, never ran us through the mud as an O-line. Attended every O-line dinner on Thursday night for the six years that I was there. And that means a lot, you know, um, he knew how much work it would put in, but at the same breath, he held everyone accountable. Um, like to joke off the field as soon as you got on the field. It was good. It was time. 

00:10:56:05 - 00:11:07:06
Jeff Krakoff: Okay. And the second is what might be a good trivia question. I noticed that you, uh, were in the movie Pitch Perfect 2. How did that come about, and what was that like? 

00:11:07:19 - 00:12:03:02
Don Barclay: Yeah, it was kind of weird how it happened. Um, my second year playing in 2013, uh, I swear to God, that movie was on every day on HBO. And, uh, a bunch of us linemen joked about it every day because you'd come in the next morning and some guys saw it the previous night. Next guy saw it the next night. Um, and we that year we were doing pretty bad. We strung like six wins together at the end of the season. And someone made a reference to Pitch Perfect, one of the songs, the soundtracks. And then after the season, uh, the producer, someone tweeted to the producer, I believe it was Dave Bakhtiari, the left tackle, and tweeted at the producer and said, you should just put us in the next movie. And they said right away they were like, that's a great idea, but get Clay Matthews and you could bring the whole other line. So I don't know if they wanted us in there or just Clay Matthews. But yeah, it was a it was a great experience. 

00:12:03:04 - 00:12:11:25
Jeff Krakoff: That's pretty good. So before I let you go, is there anything that we didn't talk about that you'd like to share about the, uh, the football program? 

00:12:11:27 - 00:13:12:06
Don Barclay: Uh, I mean, I just think it's I think it's exciting times. Um, you know, stuff doesn't happen overnight, but these kids have been really, really resilient. They've been open to a lot of feedback. They've been open to being coached and just putting in the work. Like I said, for you to come in as coaches and just change that atmosphere. As far as 5:45 a.m. lift. Guys that come back and come back in the afternoon. Camp wasn't easy. I mean, it was it was grueling. It was a harder camp time wise, physically, mentally. And I think that, you know, just the future of this program is really bright. These freshmen that got to partake in that camp and see what kind of work needs to be done, what the commitment level is, is going to be huge just for our future. Um, the amount of faces and kids that I saw at that first game was was awesome. I mean, it was really a good atmosphere, had a lot of good feedback. And, you know, it's my job now. We got to put some W's on the board. Yep. 

00:13:12:17 - 00:13:23:12
Jeff Krakoff: All right. Well I hope we see a lot of W's. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us. That was Seneca Valley head football coach Don Barclay. Have a great season and good luck. 

00:13:24:03 - 00:13:26:06
Don Barclay: Thank you very much, Jeff. Appreciate it. 

00:13:26:08 - 00:13:27:12
Jeff Krakoff: All right. Take care.