Opinion on Helmet Stickers?

I love them, except when I have to clean them off after the season. But I will say, I don't really give a rat about being politically correct. If little Johnny doesn't have enough stickers - little Johnny needs to get his butt in the weight room in January and get better.
Other than ranting - we use all kinds of little victories to celebrate. Kids can earn individual stars for stats, big plays, heavy hits, etc. The groups (OL, DL, etc) earn them as a group and the team gets them for goals and victory. We started it a few years ago when we really stunk, and it gave us a reason to focus on the positives. We also give weightlifter helmet stickers for offseason workouts, and the kids can earn their names on the back of their jersey during the summer for maxing out workouts, practices, and 7 on 7 attendence. It has worked well for us.
Thankfully, the AD supports really well. When one of the big booster's kids just missed his name on the jersey last year, I got a call. When the answer was - too bad, the AD got a call. And that worked out just fine. If you don't have that support - it is tougher to keep the integrity of the awards. You (the HC) needs to be the final say as to what goes on the uniform.
I think it is great, if you set it up so that you as the coach have the control to be sure the awards honor the things that you are after - not just some kids racking up yards. We have the caveat in our program, that stars can be pulled for conduct detrimental to the team reagrdless of stats.
I would say - do what fits your program and your goals. Let all the talkers stand on the sideline.

we give everybody a sticker when we win -- whoever the opponent, we give that type of sticker (cardinal, greyhound, bulldog, etc.)

Give stars for A's and B's. Grade issues are a thing of the past because kids want their helmets to have stars all over them. They will make better grades than you ever imagined.

actually wingtol I have done that as an OC. Exact same situation. I totally agree that the is another drawback. Makes it easier on Special Teams to figure out who you HAVE to block too

OUr players earn them in two ways
Offseason: Honor Roll, other sports, other school sponsored activities, NHS, wt room.
In-Season: Stickers are only awarded when we win. Everyone earns a sticker for the "W". Then we hand them out for individual and team accomplishments. But only when we win.

This is almost exactly how we did it in college. I would probably want to do something like that if I was calling the shots.

The first school I coached at had a coach at every level that was designated the "Star" coach. If a player got a sack or caused/recovered a turnover, the whole sidelines would gather around them and start chanting "star, star, star, star" while the Star coach would get out a star sticker and smack him on the head, like a battlefield commission almost. Fun tradition, there was an end of the year award for the player with the most stars, too. There were other award stickers like hammers and whatnot, but the star was unique and special for it's little ceremony that came with it.

A couple of other thoughts too:

1. We don't reward the leading tackler with a sticker. The leading tackler should be the Mike LB (theory anyway). Scheme is designed for him. If everyone does their job he and the other LBers should get the tackles.

2. If a RB scores a TD everyone who was on the field for that play gets a sticker. It was teamwork that got the TD so everyone on the field gets a sticker. So we have guys who never score, but have a helmet full of stickers.

3. We also give stickers for hustle plays. If a kid makes a great effort the coaches give him one. We also have something we call "wt room plays". A play a kid could not have made had he not been in the wt room.

We started stickers 3 years ago and it has been a little pain, but kids like to earn them. Only with a win though. We distribute team O, Team D, and special team stickers. Our little twist we also do give a scout O and scout D sticker to the most deserving scout player.

We have 2 types of stickers. Off-Season for grades, leadership, wgt room and participation in another sport.
We also have stickers that are based on the team goals for each game. The only way we get stickers for the game is #1 win the game and then if we meet a goal then they all get a sticker.

At the end of the season we give all our kids 8 1/2 and 11 pieces of card stock. They take their name plate off their locker and put on the top of the card stock. The players then remove all the stickers from their helmets and put on the card stock. I will then laminate all the card stock for the players to have as a keep sake.

We do the same thing for any kid who want the board. Some of my players stick them on their car windows or gym bags. They seem to stick to the bags OK.

helmet stickers are a great thing.
even individual based ones.

the kids love em and it instills a sense of personal pride.

and the grades and offseason ideas are great. i will definitely use that in the future.

just be careful with how they are distributed. I've been a part of a program where it was too easy to earn them on certain teams and too hard on others. it was very hard for the defense to earn stickers, and waaaay too easy for the pat/fg team to earn stickers. Make sure the system is valid and the stickers actually measure the impact of the player, rather than the impact of the system awarding the stickers

This will be season 21 for me coming up, and I have always been ambivalent about stickers. To me, the great thing about football is that it is the ultimate team game, and the scoreboard is the ultimate arbiter. How do you decide on stickers? No matter what kind of a system you come up with, it is artificial and arbitrary, and inevitably leads to some hard feelings.

What I have done instead is gone to a "hustle cookie" model. A lot of the kids had this when they were younger, i.e. 8-10 year olds, and they still wanted them as teenagers. One of the moms bakes up these massive cookies each week, and we hand out three for offense, three for D. We look for unsung heroes, guys who worked hard, did the little things, and made a difference. Our stars will get rewarded at the banquet and by all-star selections - hustle cookies are a chance to recognize the foot soldiers. Just as with the stickers, the kids will kill themselves to get a hustle cookie, but the difference is that once the cookie gets eaten, it is gone, and our helmets are all the same. I always worry about the star system that the stickers can perpetuate if you are not careful.

Our other award idea is the "big stick". We get two big, ugly 2x4 sticks, and hand them out each week to the guy who laid the hardest hit, offense and defense. That guy gets to write his name on it, then bring it back next week to hand it to the new winner. Again, competition to win that stick is fierce.

Anyway, there is no "right" or "wrong" way to do these things, but there's a couple of reward concepts that have worked for me...

I like the idea of using incentives and rewards for both individual and team accomplishments. I plan on cutting out helmet shapes from plywood, painting them and using these instead of actual helmets. A few of reasons why . . .

1. Don't have to deal with pealing stickers off at the end of the season,
2. Other teams can't determine if a sub is someone who has lots of stickers or not,
3. Gives players a piece of memorabilia from their high school playing experience.

Players would keep these in their lockers for the season and then take them home when the season is done.