WHITEFISH — The height of modern coach-speak might be calling your team ‘family’.

It’s an overused cliché, but the parallel is easy enough to see: families might fight and curse, but in the end of the day they stand up for each other, they support each other and, above all, they love each other.

And while love is one four-letter word you won’t hear much around football teams, there’s a whole lot of love in the Whitefish Bulldogs locker room, and it probably has a lot to do with a pair of real life families.

Bulldogs head coach Chad Ross, offensive coordinator Eric May and their sons, Chaffin (Ross) and Luke (May) will play for Whitefish’s first state championship since 1979 on Saturday at 1 p.m. when they travel to meet two-time defending champion Dillon.

“It’s incredible,” Chad said of coaching his son. “It’s awesome to have the opportunity to do life with him. It’s one of the most rewarding parts of coaching.”

The always thoughtful and deliberate Ross’ coaching philosophy makes him often sound fatherly, and is born out of some of his own turbulent teenage years.

“My brother was my hero and got mixed up and went the wrong way and I had a coach come into my life and say ‘you can have a different life,” he said. “We’re all competitive and it’s about winning games, but it’s also about developing young men into viable sources in the community.”

“I joke with (Chaffin) and I say ‘my goal in life is to keep you from doing the things I did in high school’ and he laughs and my wife’s like ‘you don’t have to tell him everything that you did’ and I’m like ‘why not?’ That’s what life’s about — you learn from your mistakes.”

Early in the Mays’ football relationship, both admit to a few mistakes.

“We’ve had some struggles,” Eric May said. “There have been some quiet dinners when we got home.”

“There was a lot of butting heads in practice and who’s right and who’s wrong,” Luke said. “I think as I got older I kind of understood to let him tell me what to do because he’s the coach, he’s always right no matter what you want to say or get another word in.

“We’ve definitely become closer,” Luke continued. “There are always arguments but we’ve definitely shared more amazing moments that arguments we could ever have.”

The Bulldogs (10-1) have been slowly building towards Saturday’s game, missing the playoffs in 2012, winning a playoff game in 2013 and advancing to the state semifinals last fall.

Much of Whitefish’s recent success has come on the strength of a special now-senior class that has built its own family-like bond.

“It’s kind of like having a lot of brothers,” Chaffin Ross said of his classmates. “You fight sometimes, but you always manage to bring it back together and make up.”

“They’re like my other brothers,” Luke May echoed. “They’re my best friends, I spend my weekends with them, hanging out. We’re with them every day.”

That closeness has been forged over years on the football field. The elder Ross and May both coached with Flathead Valley Little Guy football and 10 of the Bulldogs’ 15 seniors have played together since before junior high.

They’ve also won, a lot, their entire careers.

“They don’t keep score (in Little Guy football), but you know when you score more touchdowns,” Eric May said of the group’s early days together.

“You could just tell then that it was kind of something special.”

“We went undefeated in football (in eighth grade) and everybody was like, ‘hey, we’ve got to get to the weight room’,” Chaffin Ross said. “We got to high school and realized that if we stuck together we could have something good, and we’ve always made it fun for each other.”

Like you would expect from teenage brothers, the seniors’ friendship has spurned cordial rivalries that have pushed the Bulldogs continued growth.

“There’s definitely some competition,” Chaffin said. “You always want to best your brother at everything. We’re always pushing each other.”

With one final week together as coach and player, the father-son duos are trying to make the most of their final days together in football.

Acting as father and coach, Ross managed to put championship week into perspective.

“Win or lose, just know when you leave the field that you gave it everything you have and you have no regrets,” he said. “Yeah, it’s important, but it’s not going to define who you are in life.”

Because football is important, but not half as much as family.