Photo via Modesto Bee

Jeremy Plaa, head coach at Thomas Downey High School (Modesto, California), joined USA Football's Coach and Coordinator podcast with host Keith Grabowski to share a unique tool he uses to discipline players.

It’s called a performance enhancing exercise wheel, or “PIE” wheel for short, and it’s a creative way to mete out punishments.

Plaa got the idea from Mark Speckman, an assistant football coach at UC Davis, and decided to build his own PIE wheel for his team.

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He headed to the local craft store and created an eight-spaced spinning wheel and painted it with the team's colors. He then had the players come up with seven different exercises (one free space) for the wheel, such as bear crawls, crab walks, etc.

Whenever a player is tardy at school, swears or is guilty of other minor infractions that call for discipline, Plaa makes them spin the wheel.

By using the PIE wheel, it’s the wheel — not the coach — that becomes the proverbial bad guy.

“The concept is passing the harsh parts of punishment from the coaches to the inanimate object, the wheel,” Plaa said.

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And before each spin, Plaa tells the player that he understands everyone makes mistakes, and that he’s rooting for the player to land on the free space — the PIE wheel version of a Get Out of Jail Free card.

“As a coach, you go, ‘Man, you really screwed up, but I know you probably didn’t mean to. When you spin that wheel, I hope you get that free space. I’m rooting for you,’” he said.

Not only do players on the team love the wheel, but teachers throughout the school have embraced it as well.

This is an updated version of a blog that originally published July 5, 2017.