|
Post by coachd5085 on May 23, 2008 11:01:48 GMT -6
As Summer rolls around I was just curious to see how many run their offseason/summer programs with regards to attendance
Would you classify your summer workouts as: 1) Officially Mandatory, meaning that it is within your realm as a coach to issue punishments/discipline for missing more than the allowed amount.
2) Unofficially "mandatory", meaning that it is against rules to "require" students to be there, however the culture of the program is such that peer pressure basically makes the events "mandatory"
3) Voluntary, with Positive rewards. Your rules won't allow you to force attendance, but you offer the kids positiver rewards for attending.
4) Voluntary with no rewards. It is against the rules to demand that the kids come, but you open up the weight room at certain hours, and if they show..they show.
|
|
|
Post by coache67 on May 23, 2008 11:23:15 GMT -6
It isn't mandatory - but everyone knows if you want to be a starter or a contributor on Friday nights, you'd better be there.
|
|
|
Post by coachd5085 on May 23, 2008 11:38:07 GMT -6
Along with your votes, it might be interesting to type out your vote in a message..and then reveal your attendance numbers.
|
|
|
Post by kylem56 on May 23, 2008 12:09:01 GMT -6
unofficial mandatory meaning yeah technically voluntary but so is their playing time. they know they will struggle come training camp if they arent doing our summer program
|
|
|
Post by cqmiller on May 23, 2008 13:27:29 GMT -6
Unofficial Mandatory... If you aren't there there's no way you can catch up from 2-a-days forward...
Had a coach who had a rule: "if you do not have 75% attendance... you do not play varsity" So if you played baseball or basketball over the summer as well, you still had to make 3/4 of the practices or you were playing JV
|
|
ramsoc
Junior Member
Posts: 431
|
Post by ramsoc on May 23, 2008 13:33:33 GMT -6
Officially mandatory. You're not there, don't plan on getting in the equipment line come August.
|
|
|
Post by coachneria on May 23, 2008 18:26:35 GMT -6
How many days a week does everybody lift through the summer? With prices of gas does this play into the factor?
|
|
clloyd
Sophomore Member
Posts: 210
|
Post by clloyd on May 23, 2008 20:27:18 GMT -6
voluntary with positive rewards
|
|
|
Post by poweriguy on May 23, 2008 20:42:21 GMT -6
At my last school, they said the first day of "official" practice, is the first day of football. So whatever went on during the summer, couldn't be held against a student. So if a kid wanted to come out after 2 weeks of school, we had to let him on the team.
|
|
|
Post by coachd5085 on May 23, 2008 22:05:23 GMT -6
What kind of attendance numbers did you have? Last H.S. i worked at, we had probably 100 kids per workout ..4 days a week. Usually 97-98% each day (one or two miss each day), but as it was mandatory 100% of the team made their required lifts...because if you didnt, you weren't part of the team...
|
|
|
Post by poweriguy on May 23, 2008 23:25:17 GMT -6
During the summer we had about 30-35 kids. But during tomato season we had most of the seniors working in the fields or packing sheds. So we would lose about 10-15 kids there. So we moved summer practice later in the day so they could get some reps in.
For us that was a successful summer.
|
|
ramsoc
Junior Member
Posts: 431
|
Post by ramsoc on May 24, 2008 0:21:33 GMT -6
We get pretty much 100% attendance. There will be weeks that kids miss cause of family vacation and that's cool. But our kids know that they need to be there if they even want to sniff the field.
|
|
|
Post by rideanddecide on May 24, 2008 6:09:08 GMT -6
Unofficially mandatory... We cannot offer consequences or rewards during football for those who don't lift. But, we post attendance and every week I email the kids a list of who has been busting tail and who needs a map to the weight room. Eventually those that dont want to come in get sick of everyone telling them to lift so they quit.
I know it's the best for the program, but we probably can't field a JV team next year because we'll only have 9 sophomores.
|
|
|
Post by wingtol on May 24, 2008 7:15:44 GMT -6
we say its "voulntary mandatory" the players know they need to be there. We are allowed to wear helmets for our summer workouts so it makes it feel more like regular practice. We go 3 days a week from July 5th to the first day of official practice Aug 11th this year. We have in the high 90 % range at each workout. Their are a few who miss here and there and all that but the workouts are taken very seriously by the coaches and players.
|
|
|
Post by phantom on May 24, 2008 7:34:37 GMT -6
We can't make it officially mandatory. You'd better be there, though, if you want to play. We're fortunate enough to be in a situation where there's a lot of peer pressure to be there and work your a$$ off. The linemen especially understand that if they don't lift, forget playing time, they won't survive practice. Our attendance is good. It's rare when there's a meaningful player who has an unexcused absence.
|
|
|
Post by coachbdud on May 24, 2008 9:56:07 GMT -6
we cant make anything mandatory until mid august.
but we tell our kids that if you dont come out til then expect to ride the bench. We have some fun stuff for them to do over the summer which they can not attend without perfect attanedance( passing tourneys, fun trips to amusement parks, team camps)
anyone who comes out that official day in august is allowed on the team but put at the very bottom of the depth chart, they are gonna really have to outwork everyone else to move up
|
|
|
Post by CVBears on May 24, 2008 10:26:08 GMT -6
we tell our kids that if they are in town, they are expected to be there and work hard. We understand if the every ten year family reunion is over a weekend and they have to miss the Friday lift (as long as they are responsible and let the HC know beforehand). If We get a lot of "vacations," HC will sit down with the player and usually call dad/mom to square things away. We typically average 97% attendance.
|
|
|
Post by chaz111 on May 25, 2008 20:59:52 GMT -6
In NC you can't make it mandatory. But we "expect" 17 workouts...and for the most part get it.June 17-August 1 Monday thru Thursday.
Hills if you don't get it.
|
|
|
Post by 2leegit on May 27, 2008 9:35:38 GMT -6
Question. What if you have a kid that doesn't come to the voluntary summer sessions and he comes to the fall camp and is head and shoulders above those kids that have been at the workouts? Will you still not let him play on the team or put him at the bottom of the depth chart?
|
|
|
Post by lsrood on May 27, 2008 10:39:17 GMT -6
"Voluntary" Mandatory: we add extra conditioning to our camp schedule for those that don't make the majority of the summer workouts. We will also hold back from allowing them to practice in full pads until they have made up their conditioning as a safety consideration as well. We average 85-90% during the summer going 4 days per week in June & July. We also take into consideration family vacations and participation in other sports summer schedule. We ask them to give us equal time and they have to understand that we are the next sport on the school calendar. So far it has worked out well for us.
2leegit: I would want to know why he didn't attend before I made a decision. Did he just move in the district, were their family problems to account for, or did he just blow it off? Each one would bring a different answer. If he just moved in or had family problems I would not hold it against him at all, but if he just blew us off, then he could be on the team, but it would be at the bottom of the depth chart, for how long would depend on how he handled the situation.
|
|
|
Post by coachd5085 on May 27, 2008 11:25:13 GMT -6
but if he just blew us off, then he could be on the team, but it would be at the bottom of the depth chart, for how long would depend on how he handled the situation. As I said, this is one of the most difficult things about H.S coaching. On many if not most teams, there are players who are clearly better than anyone else, and the "depth chart" issue is simply window dressing. Parents, the team, the community know the score...and that is what makes this such a volatile situation.
|
|
|
Post by coachwoodall on May 27, 2008 12:39:22 GMT -6
We are somewhere between unofficially mandatory and voluntary with rewards. If a kids make 85% of speed and strength workouts, they get their name on their jersey.
85% is usually around 13 speed work outs and 23 lifts. We lift MWF and run TTh. In SC you can take 10 days for passing competitions and we take all 10 days. We also practice passing league stuff twice a week.
We had a dead period right before the season starts, usually the last week in July, and the kids can miss about 2 more weeks worth.
Bottom line: if a kids wants to play, he better be coming around in the summer. We do not cut, but with the numbers we have (150) in the high school, the competition is pretty stiff. If a kid comes in August and wants to play, we let him. If he is a transfer, he would have to be pretty good to snatch playing time from someone in the program. Transfers usually take a year to acclimate to how we do things. We are lucky, we have had some success and our kids really buy into what we do.
Of course we have a football class in the spring semester, so we usually go into spring ball in high gear.
|
|
|
Post by CoachBrink on May 28, 2008 6:59:17 GMT -6
We have a conditioning test the 1st day of two-a-days. By attending the summer strength & conditioning program, they either do not have to do the conditioning test or the qualifing times are greater!
|
|
|
Post by lsrood on May 28, 2008 7:04:40 GMT -6
Coachd5085,
Agreed this is a volatile situation, I disagree about the window dressing part, at least as far as we are concerned. We have had situations where players haven't earned a starting position until 4 or 5 games into the season because they started at the bottom of the depth chart for missing. They also had to do the extra conditioning which was not pleasant nor easy to be able to maintain their status on the team. As I stated before, how they handle the entire situation plays into it greatly. On the reverse side we've had players who flat out refused to do the extra conditioning and they were done on the spot, lockers cleaned out and removed from the roster.
We had a classic situation last summer. Two players would come to conditioning together, pull into the parking lot drive around and leave. They would then go off and do whatever for 3 hours then, soak their workout clothes to make it look like they had worked hard at our session and go home and tell their parents how hard they worked. Meanwhile we have the players sign into each session so we have accurate records of attendance. Near the end of our summer workouts, one of the parents called to get a message to one of these players. We told them that they weren't there and that we had not seen them all summer. This parent insisted that they were there and that they hadn't missed and that something was wrong with our attendance. The parent in question brought his son with him to our next session and demanded to see our attendance sheets. I pulled them out and after I had gotten through the first month without his son's signature anywhere, he sheepishly apologized and his tone changed dramatically. His son had to do the extra conditioning and was at the bottom of the depth chart, but ended up a spot starter by mid-season because he worked hard kept his mouth shut and did what he was coached to do. His fellow player who had conspired with him did two extra conditioning sessions before blowing up and walking off the field in a huff. We cleaned out his locker and he was done. His mother kept calling and calling asking that we give him another chance and bottom line was he got another chance, to come back out in January when we started our conditioning for 2008.
So the depth chart situation is not window dressing if you don't let it be window dressing. But it pays to keep very accurate attendance records and it is hard for a parent to argue if his son's signature is nowhere to be found.
|
|
|
Post by briangilbert on May 28, 2008 8:32:06 GMT -6
As much as I hate to say it
The best kids are going to play regardless if they show up to workouts or not.
It's no different in the classroom.
Kid A may work his butt off but test out at a C Kid B may never study but Aces every test.
Do I wish that every kid would show up to every work out? Of course, and to be honest there is only 1 starter (A very good one sadly) that doesn't show up. Fact is not everyone loves football the way we the posters on this site do. All you can do is make football as fun as possible and hope as many kids buy into it as possible.
|
|
|
Post by realdawg on May 28, 2008 8:34:41 GMT -6
We are somewhere between voluntarily mandatory and positive rewards. We lift, run, and basically practice from 9-12 Tues, Wed, Thur. The older a kid is, the more pressure on him to be there. If you want to start on Friday, especially if you play OL, you better be there 80% of the days. We have 15 workouts a summer and require the kids to make 12 of them. If they do, they get their name on their Jersey. We usually have about 100 kids there every day (less on Thursdays as the summer goes on) and attendance is about 90% of varsity players.
|
|
|
Post by cqmiller on May 28, 2008 8:51:55 GMT -6
The best kids are going to play regardless if they show up to workouts or not. It's no different in the classroom. Kid A may work his butt off but test out at a C Kid B may never study but Aces every test. I agree to some extent with this, but as a teacher you set up your class to reward the kid who worked hard all year long just to test at a C more than you reward a kid who can "test well". I was the kid in college who found out that if I passed the final in Chemistry, then I would get a passing grade in the class, so I didn't go to class all semester and set the curve with a 93% on the test. I wouldn't say that I worked LESS on the Chemistry than anyone else, I just had the discipline to study it in high school and do it on my own without going to class... I would say that I put MORE work in than a lot of my peers because I did not go and have the teacher explain everything to me, so I would have to read a section 2-3 times until I had taught the material to myself. Same with football... If you allow kids to miss and play because tehy are "better athletes", then that sends a message to EVERY KID you will ever see in the program. "If I am a good athlete, it doesn't matter if I go, because I'm better than Tommy Smith who plays my position, so why work hard when I'll start no matter what?". I think that if we are trying to teach these young men to actually be MEN, then they need to be taught that working hard earns what you get... not entitlement. We have a MAJOR problem in our area with entitlement, and kids thinking that no matter whether they work or not, they will always be in the same position they were born into... We need to show them a better way than what they are used to.
|
|
|
Post by coachd5085 on May 28, 2008 9:43:25 GMT -6
One thing to emphasize to those guys who "know" that they will start regardless is that they WILL NOT be competing with my teammates on Friday night. They will be competing with the kids at good ole "crosstown rival high". In fact, to be successful, they will have to be SO much better than the kids over there, that they compensate for the situations where the OTHER guys are better than my buddies.
|
|
|
Post by wildcat on May 29, 2008 6:43:21 GMT -6
In the past, our summer workouts were pretty much voluntary. We would have the weight room open and do other things, but there really wasn't any accountability. Once the season started, the kids who were "the best" got to play regardless of what they did or didn't do in the summer.
We have built some more accountability into the summer this year. We'll see how it works.
|
|
|
Post by lsrood on May 30, 2008 6:42:49 GMT -6
dcOhio
Amen to that. It's all about accountability and discipline. Either you have it or you don't. From my experience it is much easier to coach and teach with them than without them.
|
|