His Team, His Identity: Zachary Benedek Ready to Put His Stamp on Mars Football

Welcome to Rodney’s Rundown. “Unfiltered takes and real conversations.”

I had an exclusive one-on-one interview this week with the Mars Fightin’ Planets Varsity Head Football Coach Zachary Benedek.

“From the moment that I stepped into Mars, I knew it was special. The people, the tight-knit community. It felt right for me,” Benedek recalled.

There is a difference between taking over a football program and making it your own.

For Zachary Benedek, the new head football coach at Mars Area High School, that distinction matters.

Benedek inherits a program that knows how to win. Mars went 8-3 last season, and former head Coach Eric Kasperowicz finished his four-year run with a 30-17 record and two trips to the WPIAL Class 4A semifinals. Coach Benedek understands the foundation he is stepping into, but the 25-year-old head coach isn’t interested in simply copying what worked before.

He is blazing his own trail.

This is his football team. A new voice. A new identity.

Mars fans won’t have to wait long to see the differences I’ve personally witnessed at practices.

Building a strong, unified team culture is a priority for Coach Benedek.

Benedek and his staff are reworking the Planets on both sides of the football, installing new offensive and defensive schemes and beginning the process of establishing the identity that he wants associated with Mars football.

For Benedek, that identity starts with physicality.

He wants a team that plays tough, plays fast and makes opponents feel its presence. Defensively, his vision is particularly simple to describe. He wants all 11 players pursuing the football.

Not seven.

Not eight.

Eleven.

“I want all eleven hats on the ball at all times,” Benedek explained.

That mentality says quite a bit about the type of program Coach Benedek is trying to build. Schemes matter. Formations matter. Plays certainly matter. But effort doesn’t require a complicated playbook.

As a former defensive coach, our conversation gave me chills.

Getting 11 helmets to the football requires commitment.

It requires discipline.

It requires players believing that their responsibility doesn’t end simply because someone else appears to be making the tackle.

That same philosophy extends well beyond Friday nights.

Spend a few minutes at one of Coach Benedek’s practices and one thing is obvious. There isn’t much standing around. His practices reflect the same energy that he wants from his football team. Players move quickly from drill to drill, creating a fast-paced environment. The pace is designed to make playing fast and thinking fast second nature when Friday nights arrive.

One phrase that I love has quickly become associated with Benedek’s approach to coaching:

“Excellence is habit.”

“Everyone wants to win games, no doubt about it, but I want my players to leave my program applying that motto to the rest of their lives and be successful on and off the football field.”

It’s easy to dismiss a coaching phrase as something that belongs on the wall of a locker room. However, Benedek sees it differently. His philosophy centers on the idea that the little decisions players make every day eventually become who they are.

How they practice. How they prepare. How they treat their teammates and classmates. How they handle school. How they respond when something doesn’t go their way.

Football is part of it, but only part of it.

“We are a team at Mars and I mean everyone. I want my players treating everyone with respect and kindness from the cafeteria workers to the janitors to their teachers and coaches,” explained Coach Benedek. “That’s what it is all about for me. Are you cleaning up your trash? Or are you leaving your water bottles for someone else to clean up. Be accountable.”

Coach Benedek made it clear to me that winning games matters, but so does helping teenagers leave his program as better young men than when they entered it.

“If football is only about running the ball into a large rectangle, then I think we are doing it wrong,” explained Coach Benedek. “Football enables us coaches to have the ability to teach life lessons.”

That’s an ambitious responsibility for any head coach, particularly one who is only a handful of years removed from being in his players’ shoes himself.

At 25, Coach Benedek is one of the youngest head football coaches in the WPIAL. Some might consider that a disadvantage. He sees a distinct advantage. I adamantly agree.

Social media, recruiting pressures and everyday challenges facing today’s high school athletes aren’t things Benedek must remember from decades ago. He recently lived many of them himself.

He understands what it feels like to be a high school player wondering if college coaches are interested. He understands the uncertainty that comes with recruiting. He understands transferring, competing for playing time and dealing with injuries.

That gives him a different entry point and connection to his players.

It doesn’t mean Benedek intends to be their buddy. There is still a line between player and head coach. But connecting with today’s athlete is becoming an increasingly important part of

coaching, and Benedek believes that the relatively small age gap helps him understand the people underneath the helmets.

His own football path gives him plenty to draw from.

A 2019 graduate of Elizabeth Forward, Benedek was a quarterback and three-year captain who helped the Warriors win consecutive conference championships. His head coach, Mike Collodi, recognized his leadership qualities long before Benedek considered running a program of his own.

Benedek began his college career as a quarterback at Saint Francis before eventually transferring to Clarion. With the Golden Eagles, he became a team captain and team MVP and later made the transition from player to tight ends coach.

At Clarion, Benedek played under veteran head coach Raymond Monica, whose career has included more than three decades in college football with head coaching stops at Kutztown, Arkansas Tech and Clarion. That experience gave Benedek an opportunity to see how a college program is organized and how a veteran coach approaches the game.

Then came Mt. Lebanon.

Benedek worked his way through several responsibilities with the Blue Devils, including ninth-grade coach, junior varsity head coach, quarterbacks coach, and passing game coordinator. He spent the past two seasons on Greg Perry’s staff, another experience Benedek credits with shaping the way he thinks about coaching and running a football program.

The influences matter because Benedek isn’t trying to become the next version of one of his former coaches.

He’s taking pieces from each of them.

The leadership lessons.

The preparation.

The organization.

The relationships with players.

The X’s and O’s.

He has figured out which pieces fit his style.

That’s what makes this first season at Mars interesting.

It would have been easy for a young coach taking over a successful program to play it safe. Keep most things the same. Make a few adjustments. Avoid changing too much too quickly.

Coach Benedek has chosen another route.

The offensive scheme is changing.

The defensive scheme is changing.

The expectations aren’t.

He expects to win.

“We’re completely stripping back the offense and defense and building new schemes,” coach Benedek explained. “I’ve completely built my offense from the ground up.”

There will inevitably be some growing pains. New systems take time. Players must learn new terminology, new responsibilities and new expectations. Benedek himself will experience situations this fall that can’t be replicated as an assistant coach. The first fourth-down decision with a game hanging in the balance belongs to him. So does the first difficult loss, the first halftime adjustment and the first time his team needs its head coach to steady the sideline.

That’s part of becoming a head coach. Shouldering all the decisions.

But there is also something intriguing about giving a young coach the opportunity to build something from the ground up in his own image.

When Mars takes the field, Benedek doesn’t want fans wondering what kind of football team they’re watching.

He wants the answer to be obvious.

Tough.

Physical.

Disciplined.

Team-first mentality.

Eleven defenders running to the football.

And a group of young men learning that excellence isn’t something they can turn on underneath the Friday night lights.

“I really want my players to understand that details matter,” explained Coach Benedek. “You know we had to run an extra sprint there at the end because we went offsides and they must touch the line with their right hand on transition. Excellence is habit.”

It’s something they must practice and commit to every day on and off the field.

“Excellence starts when they wake up in the morning. Do my players jump right up when the alarm goes off or do they create a habit of hitting the snooze,” Coach Benedek explained. “If you’re constantly hitting the snooze alarm then you’re building a habit that’s going to stick with you over time.”

For Zachary Benedek, that’s where his version of Mars football begins.