I think this is why we do it

Well stated, Coach.

One thing we do in our program is Season Ending Essays. We have all players write about their season. The pros, the cons, what they loved the most, what they were disappointed in. We tell them to please talk about how they grew stronger or weaker in faith, family relationships, team, football ability, weight room ability.

Most kids will write about 2 pages. We have also asked the English department teachers to allow these essays to count for a writing and/or public speaking assignment. At one school, the entire English department went ahead with this and they named a winner in every classroom at every grade level. The winner was a football player in almost every classroom. Some of the kids had their essays memorized and even broke into tears.

This gives you the opportunity to see from your players' eyes how you really did mentoring-teaching-coaching your kids that season. It is very eye-opening. At times you think you did everything right with a kid and then you read his essay and ... man what a wake up call.

Another tradition we have is Senior Sendoff. I know most programs have Senior night one of the last games ... this is different. Maybe a month or two after the season is over, we take our Seniors out on a hike or a dinner, etc ... something special just for them and we talk about the future, them being men in the real world, that they are always welcome back, that you want to stay in touch with them. If we can afford it, get them a book or something ... The kids love it and it makes them feel a part of the football family instead of "just having their name dumped in the garbage from the depth chart ..."

sportsleaderusa.blogspot.com/

Seems like he hasn't matured to the point of shift key mastery, but life's a journey

Awesome letter, I'd be extremely proud to hear that in 10-15 years.

I do look the same......as my facebook page..LOL

I do it for the money, women, wine, and fame. But, that's just me.

thats one reason i got into this profession... the effect that you can have a young persons life is important... we need more male role models to our youth now more than ever.. there are many homes without a father in them, and mom is doing the best she can but does not know what it is to be a man. So the you males are running ragged in the streets or in the classroom. We must stick with it and be patient with our youth to get them to understand that it is not cool to not have an education and not being respectful. Good job coach. If we all can effect just one a year it will be worth it.

Congrats Coach ! It's awesome when a former player writes and says something nice about you.

And sportsleader...I love your tradition of the senior sendoff. It's another opportunity to mentor those kids and leave a good taste in their mouths about football season. Outstanding things y'all do.

i work in an inner-city school, where gangs and drugs are rampant. so quite a few of the young men i work with end up running afoul of the law... or in a few cases, worse. once i got a letter from one of my former players who was serving 5 years for shooting someone. his letter really hit home. he thanked me for never giving up on him, even though he had made poor choices over and over. he also told me that he had never felt more "a part of something" than when he was on the team. the last part of the letter was directed to the current players, who he urged to listen to the coaches and not make the mistakes he had. he asked that i read it to the team. i did, and many of the kids, some of whom knew this young man, were vivsbly touched by hearing the words he had written. it hurt to have him in prison, but it also made me realize that i STILL hadnt given up on him, or any of my players. it served as a motivation for bothe my team and myself.

Those are truly inspiring coaches. While mine isn't as deep or these, last year was my first year coaching out juniors side. My wife had our first child in may last year so I decided to take six months off to be a dad and husband. Well since I told my players about this, I've had emails, phone calls and Facebook comments from players begging me to come and coach again. The best one though was out qb, whom I'd had very little to do with being a line coach messaging my wife on Facebook trying to get her to convince me to come back this season. I nearly cried when I read that, the hc got a tad annoyed though.