High school Coaches Helping Little League

We also founded our youth league, coached it (in addition to our H.S. team) and ran the board for several years. Now we are still active with it, we clinic the coaches, go to games even have our H.S. kids coach the Spring Flag League while we referee. However, we don't make them run our offense (league mandates our defense) and the reason is that I don't think that you need to. We used to ask them to and for a long time I was a HUGE believer that they youth should run what the H.S. does but now mainly I just want them to play have fun and learn basic fundamentals. I would like them to win, but I don't think that's a major goal. (at least for me it isn't) The only thing that we ask them to do is to make sure that their playbook isn't filled with a whole bunch of gimic plays that they run instead of teaching fundamentals. A couple of years ago we had one guy that ran a reverse and fake reverse at least once a series. They would run off tackle for 6 yards a carry then he would run a reverse and lose 15. He was totally impatient and that group of kids didn't really learn a lot about football that year. The biggest reason that I don't ask them to run my system is because we try to adapt what we are doing at the H.S. level to the talent and players that we have, so in five years when they get to us we may not be running the same thing and it won't have mattered what they ran in youth ball. JMO

Very smart!!!!!!

I live in a assbackwards town that worships our local private school. I am the only coach that runs a similar style of offense/defense for our northend high school. 99% OF MY KIDS WILL GO TO THIS SCHOOL. The other board members have thier head so far up the private schoolsass that they refuse to allow any of the teams to align themselves with the high school that the kids will eventually go. Ironically ONE OF THE TEAMS HAS THEIR PICTURE HANGING UP IN THE PRIVATE SCHOOL'S GYM. THEY ALSO SEEM TO RUN A VERY SIMILAR OFFENSE/DEFENSE!!!

Our JV coaches all coach in the youth league here. Not many coaches in the area and the numbers are growing every year in the youth league (started at 59 players in 2000 and had 320 kids this year) so there are a few coaches from the high schools. I was president of the league and another high school head coach is the commissioner of the league. What's funny is the one HS team in town that doesn't have coaches in the youth league gets a lot of players out of the league.

I wish the little league coaches would come to us for help. I'm in a city with 9 high schools and God knows how many little league teams. There's no middle school ball here, so their are numerous little league teams all over, that supposedly feed into specific high schools. I'm on a new staff, but I wish some of the little league coaches would contact us!

Ideally, I would have a camp each summer where we (the HS staff) helped the LL coaches work. Then I would hold a clinic for the coaches where we shared what we know. Don't think this will ever happen here in Wichita, but I will do it eventually somewhere!

I hope not to many.

I look at it like an amateur handyman telling a carpenter how to do his job. HS coaches are paid professionals, most youth coaches are amateurs.

I do however think youth coaches should ask high school coaches about football. Doesn't mean you have to do what the high school does, if you don't want to. Most HS teams our program deals with are very helpful.

As a youth coach, I don't think I'd like the local HS staff to be very involved with my team. I'd be too worried about them trying to take over and telling me what offense or defense to run, etc... I don't think little kids really need to run the HS's offense or defense.
Now, for someone who just wrote that he wouldn't want to be told what to do, here's something that I think would be much more suitable and probably give a better return: Coach Clinics. HS coaches that could get a bunch of amateurs and daddy coaches together and teach them how to become a staff, how to effectively get your ideas through to players, how to gameplan, scout, etc...
I think those things are what keep the game of football healthy. Youth coaches would be more knowledgeable. They would do much better jobs at coaching the kids. The kids would be much more likely to stick with playing football. And, it probably would foster a more robust football community overall.

Most High School Coaches do not give Youth Coaches the time of day. All High School Coaches should want to establish a relationship with their youth coaches and help build their program since their future players will come from the youth teams. The youth coaches may or may not want to run the same system as the high school coaches but they should want to use the same basic terminology and run the same type of drills to develop fundamentals. I would love to see our local high school coaches and players sitting in the stands at one of our youth games wearing their jerseys to show their support for our youth program. The kids on my team would really like that. As far as asking for advice, the fact that someone coaches a High School team does not necessarily make them better than a youth coach. I agree that generally youth coaches are less experienced than high school coaches but not always. My youth program's head coaches have a lot of experience and they attend clinics every year. Our 4 head coaches are very dedicated coaches and they have a combined 73 years football coaching experience this year. They have coached for 73 years without getting paid for doing so because they love the game of football. It would be nice if they got a little bit of recognition for their efforts. Youth Assistant Coaches are usually less experienced because they are usually fathers that have never coached or that coach for a few years while their own child is playing at the youth level then stop but they deserve recognition also. As far as running the same offense goes, most youth programs do not even run the same offense and defenses in their own programs. The teams that do are usually powerhouses. Our youth teams finally started using the same basic terminology and systems and drills a couple of years ago and it has made a tremendous difference in our program. I believe High School and Youth Coaches should both strive to develop a good relationship and work together. Youth coaches should be striving to teach fundamentals regardless of what they run and they can learn a lot from the High School Coaches without having to run their systems. I wish more High School Coaches would offer their assistance in the way of Youth Coaches Clinics and Camps for the Youth Coaches and Youth Players. They will benefit from doing so in the future when their players have been properly taught to block and tackle. I appreciate it when any coach at any level cares enough about this great sport of ours to teach another coach or player something that will help them improve. I challenge any High School Coach that reads this to step up to the plate and help out their youth programs in any manner that they can. The Youth Coaches will thank you today and the Youth Players will thank you tomorrow.

I agree 100% ! We are fortunate to have coaches that are both experienced and good teachers. A coach that knows how to teach is a great coach. It does not matter how much you know if you cant teach it to your players. You must strive to develop a good relationship with your players so they will listen to you and allow you to teach them. The youth coaches in my organization are good teachers. They also know what to teach and do not waste time practicing things they will no use in a game. Each kid learns in different ways. Some are visual learners, some are auditory learners and some learn by doing. I have found that using a variety of teaching methods (seeing, hearing, doing) works best. You must also keep things simple and get a lot of repetitions or they will not remember what to do.