bighit65
Junior Member
Make a statement without saying a word.
Posts: 397
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Post by bighit65 on Mar 28, 2010 20:32:36 GMT -6
Here is the situation. Had a freshman and sophomore class that was loaded with talent. When they played together for that one year on jv we went undefeated and set every record there was to set. Scored 369 points and gave up 54 in 8 games. These two classes were not only talented but good hard working kids. For their varsity careers they never finished better than 5-4. No playoffs. The comment was made that because they were able to walk over everyone put in front of them on jv they got that mentality burned into their brains, thus the poor varsity record. From not being ready I guess. What is everyone else's take on this.
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Post by coachjd on Mar 28, 2010 20:44:25 GMT -6
Our current junior class went 9-0 in 9th grade football. Kids and parents thought they were amazing and did not have to continue to work and improve and reach full potential. That group of 23 is now 13 and they are the laziest group we have had around here in years.
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bighit65
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Make a statement without saying a word.
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Post by bighit65 on Mar 28, 2010 20:47:44 GMT -6
We had 4 kids sign with d2 schools and one signed with Penn. They did work but it just never came together. I just shake my head at this.
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Post by coachcastleman on Mar 28, 2010 20:49:37 GMT -6
I don't agree. Our current juniors, next years seniors were 7-1 on the JV as Freshmen, 8-0 on the JV as Sophomores. We had some very talented seniors this past season, but the junior class is the core of our team. We finished 13-1. With these kids, the success has got them to work even harder each year.
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Post by coachd5085 on Mar 28, 2010 22:02:29 GMT -6
Lots of potential reasons for their success. A couple right off the top of my head :
Where they an early maturing group? I have seen plenty of freshman phenom "men-playing-with-boys" type kids become average varsity players when they were men playing with men.
How much emphasis did you guys put on the lower levels? Sometimes other schools have various philosophies about the JV squad. Not always an apple to apple comparison when discussing JV teams.
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Post by gdn56 on Mar 28, 2010 22:08:06 GMT -6
coachd I think raises some interesting points. If your group was so much more mature, the playing field was tilted in their favor when they were younger...but others caught up. Also, what things are you doing to develop the talent in the weightroom, etc. One more thing, why is the retention so bad? Academic issues?, Quitting? I think the lack of on-field success is definately a result of either a groups of early bloomers being caught up with, or the reflection of some area of the program that can be improved.
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Post by 42falcon on Mar 28, 2010 22:13:09 GMT -6
The other point about JV teams is huge. We have a school here who's JV team is not the best coached nor is it really supported much but the senior team is treated like gold and the coaches are outstanding. Each time a great coach comes in they move him into the senior program right away. The outcome is that the JV team is middle of the road largely due to talent level while the senior squad is one of the best in the province each season. I think they have lost maybe 6 games in the last 4 seasons.
We have also seen in our own program the early success issue. We saw a year where our team was amazing (lots of seniors who contributed) but when they left and it was up to the next crop to pull their weight they did not but acted like they were the heros of old!
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Post by superpower on Mar 29, 2010 5:00:55 GMT -6
I think it depends on how the kids and everyone around them handles that early success.
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Post by realdawg on Mar 29, 2010 6:30:49 GMT -6
An old coach taught me "The easier it is to be good-the harder it is to be great."
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Post by lochness on Mar 29, 2010 6:49:00 GMT -6
There is a BIG difference between "Freshman Football" where it is one class going against ONE class from other schools and "Varsity Football" where your best Seniors, Juniors and Sophomores are going agaisnt the best from those mix of classes from other schools.
It's apples-to-oranges to compare the success of a class when they were Freshmen to the success of an integrated varsity team when those same kids are seniors.
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Post by jgordon1 on Mar 29, 2010 7:44:10 GMT -6
When you say they set every record there was to set..what do do you mean...who keeps JV records beyond w's and l's..perhaps some of this attitude came from the coaches..just saying
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Post by wingtol on Mar 29, 2010 8:18:30 GMT -6
For their varsity careers they never finished better than 5-4. No playoffs. The comment was made that because they were able to walk over everyone put in front of them on jv they got that mentality burned into their brains, thus the poor varsity record. From not being ready I guess. What is everyone else's take on this. Sounds like those things could be turned back on the coaches. Did the staff let them get away with thinking like that? What did you do as coaches to push them to get better? We had an undefeated unscored on frosh class with tons of talent that ended up playing in two state title games an winning it as Sr's. We coached them every week like we got beat 50-0. We were watching film with them team deep in the playoffs and a major D-1 coach was there recruiting one of our players. He watched the film with them team and said if he didn't know he would have said we got beat by 30 in the game. |
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Post by blb on Mar 29, 2010 8:33:16 GMT -6
Two of the biggest mistakes you can make in competitive athletics are underestimating your opponents and complacency.
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Post by tothehouse on Mar 29, 2010 9:09:53 GMT -6
Stupidly our freshman team from two years ago was labeled, "the Dream Team" by somebody. They waxed everyone their frosh year. As sophomores they lost 2 of their first 3 and were average the whole year. Man, they couldn't figure out why??? I knew...it's because they were believing that they were the "dream team". From what I hear...they are working on fixing that in the weight room. Hopefully it was a one year fluke and they realize that things aren't given to them (unless it's a stupid name) they are violently taken!!! Our schedule went from strong to EXTREMELY POWERFUL this year....they will get a taste of what it needs to be like early. Should be fun.
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Post by phantom on Mar 29, 2010 21:07:25 GMT -6
I don't think that early success creates losers. I just think that it doesn't predict later success.
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Post by norcaldiaz on Mar 29, 2010 21:29:58 GMT -6
Not trying to jack the thread but, with the stories told here in mind, is it more important (as I know some coaches believe) to have a group learn to play and win together; or to get your best talent elevated quickly (Best freshman up to JV and best sophs to varsity)?
We have a lot of young talent in our underclassmen with 5 sophs on varsity last year and possibly 6 on varsity this year (we are a large school, so not a typical thing). Obviously we expect our lower levels to struggle some but all the guys moving up are expected to contribute, with the expectation that we will have some great talent in a couple years. How many of you guys share this philosophy regarding moving up young talent?
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Post by bouncingboredom on Mar 30, 2010 4:37:01 GMT -6
I don't think that early success creates losers. I just think that it doesn't predict later success. This is a great quote in my eyes. One thing I'm always keen on is what is a player going to give me in the next game or the next season. "So you won all those games and a title and all that... well done. But what are you going to do for me this year? What do you have to do as a player and a person to achieve that level?" Make your guys actually answer this on a piece of paper (presuming anyone recognises what paper and pencils look like anymore. Yes, pencils!). To pinch a sheet from the song book of legendary Conducter and leadership lecturer Benjamin Zander, give everyone an A+ from day one... then make them explain to you what they're going to do to earn it. |
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Post by coachks on Mar 30, 2010 7:12:26 GMT -6
I think there is certainly merit to the idea that success breeds complacency.
Over the last three years we over-achieved twice and under-achieved once. Our most talented, from a purely athletic point (as measured by other sports, weight room ect) failed to get to the level of the previous two teams. There's a lot of reasons:
1) Success in middle school and JV.
2) Success in other sports (baseball title game, a few others are top wrestlers).
3) Other priorities (Be it the other sports, scholarships, personal appearance, petty bickering with teammates or various other motives.).
They weren't lazy per se. They lifted in the off-season but they never sold out to it (always sneaking in curls, coming up a rep or two short on sets ect......). They practiced hard, but never sold out to the idea that you practice to improve, in large part, because several of them didn't they they needed to improve.
As a lot of us know, the actions of a few "leaders" tends to effect the entire group. While I wouldn't have called most of these kids "cancers" they had enough arrogance that prevented them from really improving. Not enough to cause a true regression, but enough to be an obstacle to committing to improvement.
Obviously every group you have is going to be different. Some people can win without ever letting up (ala Michael Jordan), others set high goals, some set low goals. Some love football, others prefer basketball/baseball/wrestling. Others have people giving them poor guidance (you're good enough to start, you should be the QB, you're already a stud RB why should you lift?) that create poor attitudes and others have better influences.
Certainly you can't just say winning early is a negative, but it can be on certain types of people.
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Post by Coach Klemme on Mar 30, 2010 7:41:58 GMT -6
Our senior class went 16-6 over the last 2 seasons. The have done very well at all levels in our program. Other sports have benefited from them too. Basketball took 3rd in state, 1 state champ, 2 runners up in wrestling, solid in baseball too. They had supportive parents who pushed them and knew that don't settle for being good, it takes lots of hard work to be great. They spent lots of time at practices and in the weight room not to mention the classroom. We knew the group was going to be solid but the parents really helped out by not having them settle for just being good. We don't get groups like this very often. We had a 3-8 season a few years ago which had 6 kids go play anywhere from D3 to D1 football. There is only 1 kid going to a D2 school from this group but they played better together and didn't want to be the one that let their teammates down.
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bighit65
Junior Member
Make a statement without saying a word.
Posts: 397
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Post by bighit65 on Mar 30, 2010 20:25:24 GMT -6
These are some great insights here. It's tough to put my finger on what happened. Our jv and varsity are pretty seperate so I can't really say how things changed for them. Still lots of things for me to self check how I coach.
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Post by bigdog2003 on Mar 31, 2010 8:19:56 GMT -6
When I was in school, we went undefeated as 7th graders, undefeated and unscored on as 10th graders, and went 22-3 in our 2 years on varsity. I think every group is different, they might have just not wanted it.
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CoachEV
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Post by CoachEV on Mar 31, 2010 12:17:22 GMT -6
like bigdog i experienced the same things... as 7th graders we won county, (even got invited to play during half-time at a D1AA school) again as 8th graders, no losses freshman team, nor on JV team, and then our senior class lost in semi-finals of TSSAA...
most of it has to do with the kids i believe... if they drink their own kool-aid... you can almost chalk them up as done, but if they build a hunger off the winning, and a "swagger" in a sense (not arrogant but confident in themselves to handle business) then it can swing the other way... tough situations to deal with, and i have not been faced with as a young coach... so im sure in the next few tomorrows i will probably write a frustrated post like this myself...
"E"
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Post by bigdog2003 on Mar 31, 2010 16:36:55 GMT -6
I have also been a part of 2 undefeated 7th grade teams as a coach the last 2 season at the same school I played at, and we tell them all the time that they have targets on them now. Teams will be out to beat them since we play mostly the same schools all the way up. The first undefeated team backed it up with a 7-1 record last year as 8th graders, we will have to wait and see about last years group.
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