How to increase participation..

Win

year before I got my current job we were 3-6 with 25 kids out

we have gone 9-1 and 10-1 had 33 my first year 41 last year and 67 show up for our meeting this year. ( probably have 50 out)

Winning helps but it is no guarantee. I became the HC three seasons ago and we were coming off a semi-final appearence but moving up a division and graduating some exceptional players. The previous seasons spent in the higher classification resulted in no winning seasons and a number of 0 win seasons to include a losing streak that stretched to 18 straight games.

Our first season in the higher classification we finished 6-6, the 2nd year we finished 8-4 and this past year 7-4 qualifying for the playoffs each year & playing in what is considered the toughest region in our conference. We are averaging 3 graduating seniors per season moving on to post high school playing opportunities and are even refered to in the media as a "power house" and our numbers have remained basically unchanged and have dropped a bit in grades 9-10.

During this same time period the Baseball team has not won a region game in three seasons (av 3 wins a season) and basketball won their 1st in 3 seasons this past year (av 4-5 wins per season).

Bottom line is it take a lot of very hard work, done everyday to position yourself for success and many kids would rather not work hard and lose then work hard and give themselves an opportunity for success. Our players are often frustrated by their team mates and even coaches in other sports- we often hear "well they just don't do things the way we do coach".

Just don't put all your eggs in the "if we win numbers will change" basket. Recruit like heck, make things fun and give them quality experiences beyond just practicing or training to play the game. It has to be worth it to them even if the W's are hard to come by.

....win a lot, and have incentives....

So what if you get more out yet none are any damn good?

I see so much about increasing numbers but what about the quality of those numbers?

Does it really matter as long as you win... Go after the right ones, not just any ones.

Personally, I'd rather have 25 kids out that want to work, than 50 kids and half of them are just going through the motions. Then the kids that are working hard see these slugs not putting forth the effort and it effects the way the hard workers are performing. Platooning in football is over-rated. Condition your kids to play the whole game. Tell them that they are lucky to get to play the whole game. It drives me nuts when a RB in college or pro will run 12 yards and start patting his head to come out. 5 plays later you see him on the sideline with an oxygen mask on. Kids think that's the way it supposed to be.

I know that the comment about the Peckerhead and Wing T was tongue and cheek, but ask a few coaches that run the in Michigan about that offense. VERY SUCCESSFUL.

Besides do you really want to go around and beg kids to play? you probably aren't going to win with that type kid anyways. then you have 20 extra uniforms to check in at the end of the year. LOL. Fact is, football is not for everyone. And with the way society is going kids would rather sit around and play Madden on Xbox in the air conditioning than go out and work and get sweaty.

Exaggerate much?

I agree. Numbers are overrated. Nice but not especially important.

I think something being overlooked here is that the size of the school dictates a little more than just overrall numbers. One thing I've found on Huey for example is that when people talk about the size of their team they are sometimes talking about their "varsity" team. Then they'll talk about their "JV" team and then their "Freshman" team.

Not saying that's the case here and certainly not accusing, I don't know any of you or your situations. I'm just throwing out there that "25 who care is better than 50 who don't" is a great premise (which I'm inclined to agree with) but if you're talking about 25 grades 9-12 in a school with <300 kids, it's tough to have productive team periods at practice when you're dealing with those kind of numbers. Especially given that freshman are usually the biggest class.

That means you're trotting out your eleven starters on offense, then you're dealing with 14 others who may range in grade from 9-12, most of whom are younger. Even a stud freshman will struggle at practice against varsity starters. More damaging to the drill, if you're dealing with your starting defense, and let's say 2-3 of your starting OL play defense, it's a nightmare to field a competitive scout team OL.

I can normally find an able body to say "ok, you're their stud Tailback, the defense is keying on you." But when my starting Nose is destroying my JV center and tackling everything at the mesh point in the backfield, it's a mess. Can't help it though, my starting Center plays linebacker.



Just emphasizing (or trying too poorly) that the size of the school and numbers in the program vary greatly, even though some guys may just look at it and say "we only have [x] on our team" what they really mean is "we only have [x] juniors, seniors to practice with, along with our super stud sophmore we're playing up."

Exaggerate much? It happens all the time. Do you watch Pro or college football? Those guys make a decent play and they need to dance around and go the sidelines for oxygen and gatorade.

Coach I'm with you!!! We have had decent numbers the first 3 years I have been head coach here. But what we have found out that about 20% of those kids are not committed and are lazy and do not want to work hard, but expect to play. When you call them on it they act like its life or death. Not able to handle constructive criticism.

So we have called some kids out in individual meetings and have ran off about 5-7 kids per grade. We have even got a few good kids out because the pecker heads have quit. Ya, we have some kids back stabbing us in the halls, but we needed to get rid of the dead weight.

most of the kids we ran off were 1 sport kids who refuse to do anything and second guess teammates who work their tails off to get better. They would rather make the all conference beer pong team. Any yes, we have 9th graders working on being on the all-conference beer pong team.

What do you mean by an exciting offense? One that spreads the field and throws the ball around? One that averages 40+ ppg? What makes an offense exciting?