How to turn this situation around

Hey coach, greetings from Southeast AZ! I understand the frustration of an underachieving program, I played 4 years at Rio Rico High School... Here's some of my thoughts as to what you can do:
1) If you have a player that is a cancer on your team cut them out as soon as you can, its rough now that it we are in week 8. A player that is a cancer can ruin an otherwise promising season. Also, clearly state in the off-season as part of your team philosophy/ off season workouts that attendance matters. Make sure they understand that there is a direct correlation between attending strength and condtioning workouts, 7 on 7, and most imortant of all practice and playing time/ success come game night. Also give consequences for missing such as extra conditioning or loss of playing time (i.e. sit out a quater, half, or whole game) and finally being kicked off the team.

2) find administrators hat want a successful program and work with them to build one. Find dedicated parents and start up a booser club. Also go to local businesses for support, this may even mean going to Phoenix, Kayenta, Tucson, Snowflake/ Pinetop/Show Low area, or Flagstaff to find financial support. Also, since you are a rez school if you can talk to the nation's leaders (president, ouncil, etc.) and see what if anything they can do to help.

3) See if the Jr HS coaches will adopt your programs footballl schemes and philosophy there by indoctrinating them with what they will play at the HS level. push for god coaches to be hired at that level when vacancies arise. It is hard I understand for the team I'm coaching at our Jr. HS does flag football BS, so we have been relyig on pop warner in the past. Lastly there will be players that are coming out for th first time, so just coach them to the best of your ability(which I believe you are doing).

As far as coaches that have done well at NAtive American schools in AZ I know of a few schools and coaches names: Rick Benjamin was one of the coaches if I remember correctly at Ganado (3A) a while ago. As far as 2A rez schools Pita Olomua at Red Mesa in the 2A North has done pretty well this year with a 6-1 record. Any further questions you have or if you just need to vent feel from to PM me

I have a friend who is the HC of a successful program on a Native American reservation; he has had the exact same issues you have had.

1. Attendance- you don't show up for practice, then you don't play. He had/has the same low numbers every year, but they're getting better. In the past, the kids didn't have to come to practice to play; it set a low commitment level for the program. Plus, no one showed up for practice, so no one got any better.

2. You will have a hard time winning the community on the reservations until you get some wins. This gets back to getting some commitment from the kids. Around here, you are always competing against basketball on the reservations; it is the most popular sport. My friend got in good with the basketball coaches and it made a difference.

3. Put your foot down with the MS programs; set expectations for them and stick to it. If they are the one feeder school, then at the very least, they should be adhering to some simple fundamental guidelines of the game; blocking, tackling and shedding. They should also be running your scheme; if even a watered down version of it.

Also, you need to tap into the traditions of the Native American tribe you are working with. I'm not saying this as a racist, but as a coach who has grown up around the reservations; most of the tribes don't trust anybody but those within the tribe. You win their trust and it will go a long way.

I think , based on my own experiences now, that you have to do it your way. You allow folks to get their hands in it and they will take the steering wheel awy from you and your vision will never come to life. If you do it your way and you arent given the time you need to see it through then so be it.

I like the post that outlines the steps to get it done, thats very accurate in my opinion. what can be hard sometimes is when the inmates have run the asylum and still won games, then it becomes that much harder to "correct" the program in dealing not only with losing, quitting, poor practice attendance, criticism etc etc....but stay the course.

I believe that sometimes things must get worse before they get better. for example you might have to say seeya to a few good atheltes who are not good leaders and may be clubhouse cancers. if their absence allows you to coach the other kids better due to more time and energy focused on them then thats a plus for the program.

you have to coach the kids on not only football but on character and accountability before you can really have a program rolling. youll lose a few, football isnt for everyone. youll gain a few that might have otherwise been turned off by the outlaws running the show.

Thanks for the input we have been following most of this advice already. Heck we just had to forfit this week’s game since we had 4 kids eligible with our attendance policy. Hopefully this sends the message that if you don’t show up to practice then you don’t play. We have also been following this policy all year, but have never had this many kids miss (The main reason we had the big attendance problem this week was due to the fact we were on fall break).
We have had some moderate success this year. Currently we are 14th in the state and were about to make a playoff run. So it’s not like we were a down in the dumps programs in terms of success.
I think next year we are going to have the junior high practice down at the high school. Also our head coach is going to try and be on the hiring committee for the next junior high coach.
Any advice on anything else we can do or anything we can do differently is greatly appreciated.

I know the Res schools face HUGE problems with basic truancy. The Reservations near here often have truancy rates higher than 50%, they have guards at exits etc
Extreme apathy from many parents etc
Forfeits are commonplace for these teams

A former 11 year employee of mine was married to an NA from this reservation, his theory was the dependency system destroys the people. He wont even go back now, it disgusts him the apathy that exists there.

www.nytimes.com/2000/05/18/us/indian-schools-long-failing-press-for-money-and-quality.html?pagewanted=all

Problem may be bigger than you, best of luck.