Team Tampa: Building Long-Term Seven-on-Seven Success

Building an elite seven-on-seven organization has many demands, and Team Tampa is one of the absolute best models to follow.

Brian Smith | Apr 3, 2022

DALLAS - While on a trip to the Lone Star State with three of his teams to the DR Sportz tournament, two 18U and one 15U, Team Tampa leader and Head Coach Woodrow Grady has many different people within his organization helping him develop the young men playing for his squads.

It’s a part of the winning process. There are many things that have to be done, and it starts with just getting everyone from Florida to Texas safely. Traveling with over 70 players and coaches is not the easiest undertaking, especially with many of them being teenage boys. That being said, Coach Grady and his trusted colleagues are veterans at this game. They know the deal and it starts long before the current trip ever goes wheels up on an airplane from Tampa to Dallas.

Evaluations as players come up the ranks from youth leagues, tryouts, practices, and just knowing one’s craft of coaching football, among many aspects of running a seven-on-seven organization, are prime factors before each season begins. The most important aspect of Grady’s organization is still bringing in people around him that he can delegate responsibilities to.

Mrs. April Loya

Registration, food, travel plans, COVID-19 tests, dealing with players losing something (you name it), and just being a team mom, much of Team Tampa starts with this dialed in woman that is Grady’s primary assistant, Mrs. April Loya. Everyone in the organization knows she orchestrates well, and it allows Grady and all his coaches to have far less on their agendas. That’s vital and Team Tampa would not operate well without her.

Coaching

This is the bottom line. You do not consistently gather elite talent like Team Tampa just by accident. All the top seven-on-seven teams contact the elite players in hopes they will join their organization. With many of them having several options, there must be substance to why top talent joins one seven-on-seven team over another. From Grady through his assistants, they work together.

There are talented coaches, Grady included of course, inside the organization. That’s the backbone of the actual football operations. On game day, Team Tampa is comfortable and consistent with what it will do and they are not concerned if the other team has scouted them. Team Tampa believes in their model (play calls, schemes, where to align defensive backs, etc.).

The top players keep coming year after year. Team Tampa’s reputation for developing talent is well known and keeps the pipeline well stocked.

15U

The 15U team has some pretty obvious Power Five talent to go along with the developmental prospects that are coming along. In time, when they are ready, they will gain a chance to move up to the next team. Those younger teams like 15U here in Dallas are “next up” for the growing number of players that go on to become college football players and gain a free education.

Watching them operate is like a mini-me version of the 18U team. It’s simple and it works, from the outside looking in. Do not reinvent the wheel. There’s more to it than that though.

Another dime for ⁦@TeamTampa813⁩ ⁦@DRSportz_⁩ @Marchen44 ⁦@BSpicerTV⁩ ⁦@jhayesfilms⁩ ⁦@Coast2Coasttc⁩ pic.twitter.com/HRynAvsLCW
— Brian Smith (@fbscout_florida) April 2, 2022

This in-depth process that starts at the lower levels of Team Tampa allows the 18U to plug in talent when players are missing while taking a college visit, at a track meet, sick or any other situation arises. 15U players moving up to 18U is not all that uncommon. Talented enough to suddenly need to move up? Yes. The ones that do are also trained properly. That’s just as important.

When it's time to move up permanently, that means the foundation of the player and the young man himself have been established. Maturity, discipline, and understanding of how to work within schemes and play calls. It’s an undertaking that has many steps. Football is as complicated as any sport on the planet. Team Tampa’s 15U squad goes through the process of learning it well before any one player earns the right to move up.

18U

There’s an underclassmen group of 18U players and the primary team. Again, it’s about development. Each player has a role and needs to find his niche amongst his teammates. Like any of the Team Tampa squads, there’s plenty of talent regardless of the specific team in question.

As for the 18U Elite team, there are many fantastic players. They want the challenges that come with wearing the Team Tampa name. The list of current and former NFL players that has come through Team Tampa is as high or higher than any seven-on-seven organization in America. Here are two of Team Tampa's best.

Team Tampa about to do battle ⁦@DRSportz_⁩ Dallas Tournament- ⁦@TeamTampa813⁩ ⁦@E_WashingtonII⁩ ⁦@IBryson13⁩ ⁦@JohnGarcia_Jr⁩ ⁦@BSpicerTV⁩ @Marchen44 ⁦@jhayesfilms⁩ pic.twitter.com/YtvZpZCVV8
— Brian Smith (@fbscout_florida) April 2, 2022

That’s a major reason why national 2023 recruits such as Bryson Rodgers (WR) and Elliot Washington II (CB), both seen in the above photo, as well as Dijon Johnson (CB), Eugene Wilson (WR) and Troy Bowles (LB), among others, continue to play with Team Tampa. That does not even mention all the underclassmen talent on the team. Combined, they all want to compete at a high level and go against the best.

This is yet another group of players that people reading this article will soon see at schools like Alabama, where Elliot is committed, and making plays on television. Before donning a college helmet, Team Tampa is a part of how they develop. There’s one other aspect of Team Tampa that needs mentioning before closing.

Parents

Whenever at a tournament, parents of this organization show up to cheer and help out Mrs. Loya with the players. It’s a tight knit group. As the team travels to different locations in Florida and beyond like Dallas, parents tag along and help out as well. It’s all a part of the overall dominance that Team Tampa has captured for a very long time.

In the end, Grady has done very well to continue producing top players and top teams. He’s assembled the people around him that will help the players from a variety of different ways. It’s all a part of the winning process that Team Tampa utilizes.

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