It's the end of October, and that means it's football playoff time.

Some of the Friday night matchups may, one day, grow into legend, as timeless as one of the head coaches that will appear on the sidelines this weekend.

A team that prepares for everything, including the weather, is prepared to win in any conditions.

"You come on the field, even in this weather, what we're faced with today, you don't even know you're on the field. When you have a good team and good kids, time goes quick," said Carl Sanfilippo, longtime head football coach at Baldwinsville High School.  

Time moves faster and faster for Sanfilippo, who has a lifetime of experience with a coach's whistle, almost 50 years, to be precise.

"They're good kids. Everyone says, 'Well, kids are changed.' I don't think kids are changed," the coach said. "I think society around them has changed. But I don't think the kids themselves have changed. We're the same way with them as we were almost five decades ago."

And for roughly the last half-century, the coach has been helping raise sectional champs and talented young men.

Sanfilippo says his guidance is only half the battle.

"I think they listen to what you say," he said. "And I think no, we we have a lot of old guys come back and talk to guests, and people come back and talk to them, and you can see if they soak it in. They soak in what the guys have to say."

And, of course, talk on and off the gridiron is cheap, so barring 11-on-11 scrimmages, the coach is in the thick of things to best diagnose, strategize and motivate.

"I can't stand in the back and watch. I'm a hands-on coach, and you want to be up there with them," Sanfilippo said. "They know the first step better be right."

And for as many years as the coach can continue to weather the storm, like his football teams, he says it's about the basics.

"This field is surrounded by a white light. Inside the white lines, nothing changes," Sanfilippo said. "It's not 2021, it's not 1950. It could be any those years in between. That 45-pound plate still weighs 45 pounds. They may dress it up and put a rubber coating on it, but it's still a 45-pound plate."