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June 4, 2026
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Vertical Raise
Why we like it
coach grabowski says...
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I want to make sure that this program has what is best so every person within it can be their best, and we get the best results… [When I became the head coach], I hit the ground running with my fundraising hat on. This is part of the job… We blew this [fundraiser] out of the water. We raised $150,000… The best they ever did without Vertical Raise was about $75,000, so we doubled that… Vertical Raise really took it to the next level… Public schools have to fundraise. Why not use the leader in the industry? Why not use the simplest approach, the one that requires the least out of the coaches?”
- Ryan Knowles, Head Coach, Sandpoint High School (ID)
I was in it for ten years, and I'm like, man, this is the only thing I know. I only know the pigskin. I don't know anything else. Who's going to hire me?… I put my faith in the forefront, and I said, ‘hey, if this is what you want me to do, and if this is your plan for me, let's do it.’ So I took so many things that I didn't know I had from college football. I took the organizational skills. I took the relationships. I took my connections that I had. I took all that, and it all relates to Vertical Raise… If I didn't have those skills I developed in college football, like I said, I wouldn't be where I'm today.”
- Zach Crespo, Former College Coach; Vertical Raise Fundraising Coach
We used to have multiple fundraisers, but [Vertical Raise] has allowed us to make a much larger amount of money in a shorter period of time. So we really only have two fundraisers now... The least that we've cleared in our not-giant community is $23,000 off of just one event with it. It made as much as $30,000 or $31,000 into our fundraising account... It's been just a tremendous thing and really changed how we go about fundraising and the amount of time that we have to put into it... There's very, very little work on our end as coaches. So it's just been a great program for us to be involved with.”
- Rob Zimmerman, Head Coach, DeWitt High School (MI)
Podcast Episodes
Pursuit of Perfection and Raising Standards – John Harbaugh, HC, New York Giants
On this episode of Coach and Coordinator, host Keith Grabowski is joined by...
One Play at a Time – Teaching the Modern Player
I came back to coaching after a decade away and walked straight into...
The Passing Lab – The State of the Passing Game – Caleb Corrill, OC, Georgetown College
In this episode of The Passing Lab, host Josh Herring sits down with...
Articles
The Starburst Backfield: How to Engineer Misdirection Defenses Can’t Diagnose
Ideas from a coaching conversation with Paul Kilby, who was an assistant at Liberty Hill (TX) for six years and
Football IQ: How Nate Longshore Builds Smarter Quarterbacks
Football IQ isn’t just about knowing the playbook. It’s anticipating the defense before the snap, reading routes like a defender