When Thomas Hoffman was still in his mother’s stomach, his mother would walk around the track while her husband, Kirk Hoffman, coached high school football.

Kirk is currently the head football coach at Alcovy with over 30 years of coaching experience. Kirk’s son, Thomas, who’s on the Alcovy coaching staff doesn’t have that much experience, but he’s been around football since before he was born.

“I guess I can say I was born at the football field,” Thomas said. “My mom was pregnant, she was at practice walking the track so I’ve been around football since I was born. I remember when he came over [to Alcovy] from Spalding, one thing I was torn about, keep playing or come over here? I made the decision to start following in his footsteps and learning the game.”

“He’s been on my coaching staff since he’s been about eight years old,” Kirk added. “I can remember back in 2003 when I’m coaching and we’re playing in the Dome and he’s my ball-boy. So he’s always been there. And because he’s been around the game and stuff, he’s grown up with it and that’s his interest. As a dad you gotta like that.”

Thomas was a ball boy when Kirk was coaching at Jackson. Even then he was at practice every day with his father.

“I’d ride my scooter, go home and ride the scooter up to the school every day and I was at practice. That’s kind of where I started learning that mentality of don’t sit on the field and just being involved in the ins and outs of it,” Thomas said. “That’s probably one of the biggest things when I stopped playing. It’s a different mentality when you’re in the jersey and the helmet to when you’re on the sidelines.”

As a 10th grader, Thomas was playing football at a different school than where his father was coaching. So he’d leave school and get to Alcovy halfway through the Tigers’ practice. Thomas also played under his father for two years, which was a great experience for both he and his father.

Thomas, who wants to be a head coach someday, has a vast amount of football knowledge and he’s gotten pretty much all of it from being on his father’s coaching staff.

“Coaching is like anything else, the more you do it the more you’re around it you learn every day. The last four or five years even, going through college, him being at the games on Friday nights you’ve seen him grow not just in the knowledge of it, but also how to handle kids,” Kirk said. “One thing about being a high school coach is, everybody says it’s the x’s and o’s, that is it but it’s also how do you deal with the young kids and he does a great job of that also.”

“It’s a lot easier when you’re sitting in the stands or when you’re playing as a kid. Because a lot of the adversity’s covered up by your coaches. They handle it,” Thomas said.

Thomas says that he wants to instill into kids hard work and other intangibles that will carry them into adulthood. His biggest takeaway from watching his dad is how to handle adversity.

Thomas recalled to a time when Kirk’s team was playing in the Dome and the starting fullback hurt his knee in practice and the coaching staff tried to keep it under wraps from the community, but the girls basketball team got wind of it and it was something Kirk had to deal with.

“It’s not what the kids can help you obtain, but what you can help the kids obtain,” Kirk says is his greatest lesson to his son. “When those kids are 25 and 26 you want ‘em to come back and say hey, ‘Coach you made me into a great dad. A great father. A great worker.’ Because that’s what life’s about. We would all like to be able to say we gone play pro ball and all that but let’s look at the majority. That’s our role as high school coaches and teachers and anybody that deals with youth is to teach them to be great citizens.”

“I learned that from a man that raised me like my dad and hopefully I’ve passed that on to him.”