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Post by phantom on Jun 10, 2010 18:38:47 GMT -6
phantom, that's not what I meant to imply. My point is that a lot of guys just run what they know, and then always justify it with "we'll this fits our kids so.... or this is what we have to do to compete in our league..." I think a lot of guys use the personnel thing as a cop out, but I know guys who win all the time, who have the teams that others point to and say "boy if we could have those athletes", and even the coaches of THOSE teams act this way. They don't view themselves as having the best personnel. I don't think very many coaches do, and that can actually be a healthy thing. I'm probably not being clear or saying this the way I want to. I agree on both counts. You certainly can't depend on outmanning everybody year and and year out and I agree that most coaches use a "lack of talent" as a cop-out.
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Post by outlawjoseywales on Jun 12, 2010 7:10:01 GMT -6
While we have all read about the "magical" coach that turns things around immediately, 99.9% of us are mere mortal. I think when you have a decade long trend, that might qualify under the "why my personnel sucks" banner. There are schools where the student population doesn't include loads of football athletes. 5085 was musing about why EVERYBODY says their personnel is so bad that they have to run a certainly defense. I didn't understand why he was posting this until I read a certain thread in the General Defense section. This game is about people, most of us have just about the same kind of people as others in our conferences. However, occasionally you'll find a school where they actually do "suck." Good luck in your next venture. OJW
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7523
Freshmen Member
Posts: 27
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Post by 7523 on Jun 12, 2010 20:50:43 GMT -6
you said it.
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Post by bluecrazy on Jun 16, 2010 18:44:32 GMT -6
While we have all read about the "magical" coach that turns things around immediately, 99.9% of us are mere mortal. I think when you have a decade long trend, that might qualify under the "why my personnel sucks" banner. There are schools where the student population doesn't include loads of football athletes. 5085 was musing about why EVERYBODY says their personnel is so bad that they have to run a certainly defense. I didn't understand why he was posting this until I read a certain thread in the General Defense section. This game is about people, most of us have just about the same kind of people as others in our conferences. However, occasionally you'll find a school where they actually do "suck." Good luck in your next venture. OJW Agree here. This has been a great thread, even with it's ups and downs I have been at good, and bad situations. I have seen{the place I'm at now} Situations where no matter how hard you work, how much you show the kids the need for the weight room, summer program, 7 on 7. Or no matter how much fun you make the weight lifting/speed work, they just won't buy in. Either do the parents. They feel that when the season starts, that is when they start. Unless they need to show there dog at the fair Coaches come and go, some good, some not so good, but just can't change the culture. When a school only has a winning season every 10 years, something is wrong in the atmosphere. When you only have 7 winning seasons in 59 years, it can't just be coaching only. I agree the kids are good kids, and you can have speed, but unless you are willing to work at getting better, you will only have potential. I like the 10/80/10 that was talked about, and I agree, but you also have to have more then 3-7 kids show up for work outs. less the 10 percent. I have taken a little different road here, and have the Jr. High kids excited, and showing up to work outs, not that I have given up on my varsity kids, I never will. But I'm finding that if we build from the lower levels, we may be able to change the culture. That is if we are around long enough.
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Post by coachcb on Jun 17, 2010 10:46:04 GMT -6
In a lot of case, a poor program has issues that reach FAR beyond the coaching staff and the personnel you have.
There are programs out there that lose continually because the administration and school board have their noses in everything. We've all read about it time and time again on this board; principles that want to dictate schemes, that don't leave the coaching to the staff, and that just don't give the HC enough leeway to do the things they need to do..
It can be something as simple as an AD not allowing the HC to bring hire their own staff and clean house. Or, just simply force one bad assistant on the staff. I know an HC that dealt with that for two years; he ran a good Wing T offense but the AD forced an assistant on him that caused all kinds of problems because he wanted to run "The Spread".
Sometimes, it's the PE department getting in the way.. An HC knows that he needs to get proper weight training equipment in there (free weights, squat racks, power platforms, etc..) but the PE department won't give because they don't want to give up the 30 year old Universal Stations that take up the entire weight room. They think that it's 'just football equipment' and they don't understand that they can do SOO much more with a couple of power racks and a good set of dumbbells.
I worked under an HC that had coached football and taught PE for 20 years. He was given alot of leeway by the administration to get a quality weight room going. The room was packed full of useless machines (even had a piece of sh-t Nautilus neck machine) and he came in and cleaned it all up. He put power racks in along with a new dumbbell set and get a couple of useful machines (one was a newer universal station that didn't take up space) and really turned the weight room into a useful area. He had to fight TOOTH AND NAILS to get that stuff in there because the PE department just wanted the kids to come in during weight training days and use a machine circuit that was implemented back when "All The Right Moves" was popular. They were forced to come up to speed on current weight training programs (general fitness and sport performance) and they were p-ssed off about it.
You've got communities that don't care about football because soccer/basketball/cross country (lol) are so successful. The community pushes the kids to specialize in one sport and everything else suffers because of it.
But, at the end of the day, you focus on what you can control. You do everything you can to get a good off season program going and as far as personnel goes: "you dance with the one you came with".
I'm not saying that every coach that takes over a poor program has the ability to turn it around; we know that's just not true. You can be a fantastic coach with a great staff and still struggle every year because of all of the external bullsh-t that you don't have control over..But, you focus on what you can control, do your best and know, that at the end of the day, you did everything you could to make a positive impact on the kids you coach.
I know that there are times when this site becomes frustrating for coaches because the general response to many questions is simple: coach the kids up. We say that because we have figured out that it's what is in your control. We're not saying you're a sh-tty coach, we're just stating that you coach your a-- off and hope (or friggin pray) that it pays off in the end.
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Post by phantom on Jun 17, 2010 11:24:10 GMT -6
In a lot of case, a poor program has issues that reach FAR beyond the coaching staff and the personnel you have. There are programs out there that lose continually because the administration and school board have their noses in everything. We've all read about it time and time again on this board; principles that want to dictate schemes, that don't leave the coaching to the staff, and that just don't give the HC enough leeway to do the things they need to do.. It can be something as simple as an AD not allowing the HC to bring hire their own staff and clean house. Or, just simply force one bad assistant on the staff. I know an HC that dealt with that for two years; he ran a good Wing T offense but the AD forced an assistant on him that caused all kinds of problems because he wanted to run "The Spread". Sometimes, it's the PE department getting in the way.. An HC knows that he needs to get proper weight training equipment in there (free weights, squat racks, power platforms, etc..) but the PE department won't give because they don't want to give up the 30 year old Universal Stations that take up the entire weight room. They think that it's 'just football equipment' and they don't understand that they can do SOO much more with a couple of power racks and a good set of dumbbells. I worked under an HC that had coached football and taught PE for 20 years. He was given alot of leeway by the administration to get a quality weight room going. The room was packed full of useless machines (even had a piece of sh-t Nautilus neck machine) and he came in and cleaned it all up. He put power racks in along with a new dumbbell set and get a couple of useful machines (one was a newer universal station that didn't take up space) and really turned the weight room into a useful area. He had to fight TOOTH AND NAILS to get that stuff in there because the PE department just wanted the kids to come in during weight training days and use a machine circuit that was implemented back when "All The Right Moves" was popular. They were forced to come up to speed on current weight training programs (general fitness and sport performance) and they were p-ssed off about it. You've got communities that don't care about football because soccer/basketball/cross country (lol) are so successful. The community pushes the kids to specialize in one sport and everything else suffers because of it. But, at the end of the day, you focus on what you can control. You do everything you can to get a good off season program going and as far as personnel goes: "you dance with the one you came with". I'm not saying that every coach that takes over a poor program has the ability to turn it around; we know that's just not true. You can be a fantastic coach with a great staff and still struggle every year because of all of the external bullsh-t that you don't have control over..But, you focus on what you can control, do your best and know, that at the end of the day, you did everything you could to make a positive impact on the kids you coach. I know that there are times when this site becomes frustrating for coaches because the general response to many questions is simple: coach the kids up. We say that because we have figured out that it's what is in your control. We're not saying you're a sh-tty coach, we're just stating that you coach your a-- off and hope (or friggin pray) that it pays off in the end. I think that the moral is that you need to do your homework before you take a job. We have a school in our league that's a perenniel loser. I literally can't name every HC that they've had. It's like in the war movies- why bother learning the replacements' names? Among local veteran assistants it's become a running joke every couple of years when the job's open: "Hey, putting in for the ___ job?" (Pause) "Hahahahahahahahahahahaha". I believe that jobs like this are an aberration, though. Other "losing" programs here have been winners and win at other sports. Our place was a loser before our old HC got here. They had athletes but supposedly had a "losing culture". That can be fixed.
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Post by coachcb on Jun 17, 2010 13:27:17 GMT -6
Phantom, great post. There are two sides to every coin.
I coached under a guy who took over a program that hadn't won a game in three years and took them to a state title his first year. Dead serious; he brought in a good staff and they were very successful. He plugged in a simple system and coach the h-ll out of it. They had a good running back and they found ways to feed him the ball 30+ times a game. Their OL was tiny, but they were fast, athletic and were very well coached; they were given a chance to succeed.
On the flip side, I have seen successful programs taken over by a new staff and run into the dirt. They went from being teams that we HATED playing every year to the cake walk portion of our schedule. They were still very successful in other sports and the school was big into athletics, but football went down the toilet.
I wouldn't have taken over the HC job I have next year if the AD and I weren't on the same page. We've just sat around and shot the sh-t for hours about football and he agrees with me on everything. He's letting me hire my own staff, giving me a lot of leeway with the weight room and is providing me with a fantastic football budget. Most importantly, we see eye to eye with respect to my sports psychology philosophy; he knows that I am a positive and upbeat coach that I don't believe in 'breaking the spirit and building it back up' stuff.
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Post by mariner42 on Jun 17, 2010 13:59:45 GMT -6
I think that the moral is that you need to do your homework before you take a job. We have a school in our league that's a perenniel loser. I literally can't name every HC that they've had. It's like in the war movies- why bother learning the replacements' names? Among local veteran assistants it's become a running joke every couple of years when the job's open: "Hey, putting in for the ___ job?" (Pause) "Hahahahahahahahahahahaha". We've a place like this in our league. They'll never get more than 4 wins, period, with exception of one season where they were lead by one of the most inspirational, charismatic, and downright TOUGH RBs I've ever seen. What I've taken to doing is trying to track down the exact cause for the previous coaches lack of success and then 'roleplay' how I would try to fix it. For example, the last HC was fired for a scandal where a bunch of his teams fundraising money (something like $25k) was stolen from his workplace (off-campus investment banker). Now, part of this is just bad judgement on his part, even though it was locked in a desk which was locked in an office which was locked in the building, but in poking around I found out that he'd repeatedly tried to turn it all over to the AD. The AD, for whatever reason I couldn't determine, had either not made himself available to do the official paperwork that comes with submitting funds or whatever OR had simply refused to do so until school started up again, as this all went down in Mid-August before their school had started up. In any case, it was an example of a somewhat dysfunctional administrative relationship that eventually lead to the firing of a guy who seemed to have their program going in a good direction. Now they have to start over, again. So yeah, I'm trying to prepare myself for these kinds of problems by investigating the failings of others and trying to determine how I'd solve their problems. Exercise in nerdery for certain, but I think I'm learning important stuff
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Post by coachcb on Jun 18, 2010 8:34:09 GMT -6
As far as administrations go, I learned my lesson the hard way.
I was coaching a freshman/sophomore team five years ago and I knew that the season was going to be nothing but trouble. We had over 60 kids out for ball, but the AD wouldn't split between two teams to make sure all of the kids got playing time. We had the "5th and 6th quarter" system: try and win in the first four quarters and then plug the rest of the kids in during the last two. It was a friggin nightmare..
We had new parent complaints every single week; ranging from parents upset about their kid not getting playing time (viable) to kids not getting their 30+ carries/10 catches per game (not viable) But, they were all taken seriously because the AD was stupid were SERIOUS problems (the HC and OC hated each other and the DC didn't care), so we took all kinds of crap and looked like idiots.
I coached the kids the best I could but I was a young coach and really didn't do the best job I should have. BUT, I always treated the kids well and got as many kids playing time as possible, which resulted in arguments with the staff.
One parent hated me because he thought I had his son rotating in with other three other TBs; he whined about it constantly. One day, he heard me drop a 'd-mn' underneath my breath on the edge of the sideline. He used to follow me around, just outside of the sideline, harping on me all game. He had to be asked to get into the stands several times. But, he went to the AD and lied through his teeth; telling him that I was swearing at the kids all of the time.
The AD pulled me in and told me that he was going to do a 'formal investigation' into the situation because of my inappropriate behavior which was using PG language, under my breath, away from the kids. It had all compounded because all of the crap that had gone on all season; stuff that I stayed out of.
I told him that I wasn't going to bother with it and resigned. And that was after the HC told me that I was going to be the only coach coming back; everyone else was getting canned. He created a problem from DAY 1 by not splitting us between two teams. We could have even split between two teams DURING games with the teams swapping quarters. Keep the 5th and 6th quarters and EVERYONE gets all kinds of reps. Now, there's no complaints over playing time and we're just stuck with the moron parents that think we're robbing their 15 year old son of his D1 college career.
Moved on to a program 8 miles away that's a class below the former circus job. They hadn't beaten the bigger program at the freshman, sophomore, or JV level in over a decade. We knocked them off three times.
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