"If the season is good, people stay in the program and buy into what is working, so it usually solves itself."
Raider, this is an interesting situation. Is it normal for youth and MS kids to quit if their season isn't going well? That would seem to be a pretty tough battle to fight in keeping the numbers up.
"Mercy-rule", worst thing ever invented, it has never been good for the kids who are on the losing end. It is like not letting them finish with dignity.
First season as HC,we beat the defending champs in the opening week. The limit was players past a certain date that a team who generally gets favorable rules had as their threshold age.
So we beat them, and on shaking hands I'm trying to keep the Steelers team of that season upbeat. Players who showed something good on the field get encouragement. "We'll see you in the playoffs, don't give up on this."
Their best RB tells me "F this, I'll go play for the 8th grade team."
This of course doesn't match the league age limit that was being enforced, yet he goes one to do just that. He's slated to be the HS starter next year.
Always, I tell players that they actually play two seasons, three counting preseason scrimmages. Scrimmage games get played(we were the only team to play back to back on jamboree day, won one and lost the other closely when the fatigue kicked in).
The same thing this past season with our league runners up. Back to back games, we were worn out in the hot part of the year and lost on the final play as the buzzer was going(they start games later now, to the cooler end of the day, on the first half of the year until the daylight change. //We're adding a third team from the county south side again though, so it may have to change again, my preference is to let those teams get select start times to accommodate their traveling, though it wasn't the case for the commish's policy last time).
The regular season is one to itself, we had staggered schedules and faced teams twice at times, and played two games on weeks others forfeited just to get people play experience, the whole game done at the pace of mercy. This latest move probably expedites the process.
As for winning/losing, once you're on a team it's stay and play. Nowhere else you can go, unless your team takes on the kids others kick off their team like mine did in its first year. The problem here was that bubble players would bail to the MS seventh team or from it depending on how much play time they got. They're eliminating the final year for several reasons(the chief being the league favorites don't have those players) but another is to swell ranks in the MS program to justify a funding increase. They need raw numbers for that, no way around it.
My first item to remind players of was that it doesn't come easy, coaches find out you quit on one team they may hold it against you. Of course some of those coaches think "job security" and want certain players, and this demand overrides the other concerns. To me, a player who comes to a team that is an underdog and makes them compete and win, that is more notable than someone tagging onto the select team that never takes first year players.
If you beat a team bad enough they won't suit enough up, maybe be down to eleven or twelve players here. We destroyed a team the final week of the regular season, they were seeded to face us in the original bracket and simply ended their season.
That said, they matched us scoring in the second half and to me that was proof they were ready for the challenge. The seedings were rearranged anyways due to a late upset in the other bracket. We don't encourage or allow trash talk after a game, those players are your peers, you will respect them and the game, but it's all on the line in game time.
We had the mercy rule enacted on us twice at halftime, won one of those games and took the lead late in the other(to which point the game clock rules were reversed to secure their late win). You better respect the team suited up across from you, don't go into cruise control on what the scoreboard says. We had them stop counting scores before halftime so other teams could feel like they had some chance also. They quit counting our scores, ended games in the third and fourth quarter at times.
Those times I took my best players and had them serve as coaches for the team in the second half. Calling plays or sending in players w/the coaching keys for for their particular position. To see a young player think with the big picture in mind, running out time, getting first downs, rotation concerns so the ball carrier is fresh, what to do when something unexpected gets shown the team, those guys had all of that at their command.
When the game really seemed out of reach, and we had others scheduled and already there, we took that into account. Those refs need their breaks, announcers and scoreboard, etc.
So there were several mercy rule applications at play.
Players quitting to have mercy on themselves, that isn't new or a shock. That problem emerged in other ways for me the first year after they changed eligibility status for my top player. There were other teams that had this happen in bigger ways though, and the shame of it is that only so many teams can be scoreboard winners. To me, the act of suiting up, buying into a team concept, playing hard, clean, and smart football, that's laying the groundwork for being a winner, even if you are on an over matched team.
That happens to a degree every week the league plays in almost every game. I hate to miss seeing it, it takes a while to wind down after the heat and intensity of our contests, usually we try to get back out and help on the field crew, not just to scout.
We actually try to do the majority of scouting two weeks in advance so we can manage things around our actual game day schedule better too.
