Success and posting

I've known some major idiots that coached deep into the playoffs with D1 kids they just told to "be athletes"

now, they may be geniuses for letting the athletes take over with their natural gifts

but it funny when those same guys run into having to coach a team with some inferior players and don't know how to handle it

maybe they are smarter than me for having been at a place with better talent--maybe just luckier

i know this

I can't stand going to a clinic and hearing johnny awesome coach from the state quarterfinal team do a clinic talk and all they do is read off their stats from a powerpoint and then put on the film---"we are just blessed with excellent players"

lol

whatever

A coach's rep should be judged on the model he presents and the impact he has on the development of his players as goal-oriented young men. If they happen to become good players and win some games...all the better. It's about the "HOW" he teaches, motivates, develops and influences that is most important. We say it all the time on this board that it's not the X's & O's... but how you teach them techniques and general game understanding that makes the difference. Having been at both ends of the spectrum of winning/losing as a coach...if you can't recognize the bigger picture beyond the W's & L's, you shouldn't be coaching...at least at the scholastic level IMO.

A war is won more by logistics than strategy.

As we all know, coaching is time management, teaching, performance management, and a whole lot more than scheme. You can only control so much of the environment and a great program is great because all the mules are pulling together. If you can, surround yourself with people that are great at what you struggle with (and then steal their good ideas).

The scheme should help the player be in the right place at the right time. It is my responsibility to help the players perform to their true potential. For scheme I believe the only test I need to apply is "does this make sense?." Is it internally consistent? Does it have a chance of being successful? Is it better that what we do now? Will changing cost less in teaching time than spending that time on what we do now?

I'm finally beginning to understand that being a coach is less about schemes and more about execution. I think that I learn this every year, but it still comes as a shock when I realise I wasn't right enough. It's not what the coach KNOWS, but what the player DOES. Technique is the other side of the coin to scheme and the two are inseparable. If you don't know HOW a player is supposed to do a job, you don't really know the scheme because you can't coach it. Oftentimes the difference I see on tapes is due to better better coaching. That hurts when your team looses.

In the end, I like to think in terms of potential vs performance. It is possible to be a GREAT coach and still have constraints limit the entries in the win column. I suppose that is why I find the posters dealing with similar constraints as I face the most helpful.

Besides, I'm not going to steal ALL of his ideas, just the GOOD ones!

I couldn't agree more with this statement. I understand there are competent individuals on here regardless of record. However, circumstances and challenges are different. I learn from everyone on here, but from a program structure and practice organization perspective I tend to have more productive discussions with coaches in similar situations.

First off, Michigan does not have any where close the high school football environment of Texas, Florida, California, or Ohio. So sometimes relating to coaches who coach in these states can be challenging because the attitude toward football by the administration and community is not the same. Don't get me wrong, there are communities in Michigan where football is "IT" but those are few and far between and they're the ones that are usually playing in the state championship games come Thanksgiving.

We have no budget for football outside of coaching stipends for four, transportation (which may get cut here soon), game officials, and reconditioning of helmets each year. That is all that is paid for by the school in our so-called "football category of the athletic budget." The rest of our program's needs, the majority of which is equipment, is handled through fundraising.

In a typical year, we have around 20 on the varsity and around 20 on the JV, give or take two at each level. We also only have myself (head coach) and three assistants. We are a small school (enrollment = 419) in a county with the 8th highest unemployment rate in Michigan, which is also a state with the 5th highest unemployment rate in the entire country. 70% of our school district's population qualifies for free or reduced lunch which equates to a community entrenched in poverty.

Unlike some urban environments that may have higher free or reduced lunch percentages (upwards of 90%), we don't have kids that if we help to keep out of trouble then we may have some D1 recruits on our hands. Not the case at all here. I have had one kid in four years as head coach go on to play college football and that was at the D3 level which was an opportunity afforded to him more for his academics than his ability. Having coached only one college football player is certainly not for lack of trying on my part, I can assure you of that. We do everything in our power to inform and help our players with those opportunities.

Unfortunately, our players don't have the ability to make it on with the D2 programs in the state (we've got some good ones) so they are limited to D3 for the most part, but the admissions requirements to get in to those institutions have proven too challenging for some. The ones we have that could get in academically, have just not wanted to play at the next level or have looked at the cost of attending a private institution and have cringed. I explain to them about financial aid because I attended a D3 school and got some financial aid. Being done with the game and attending bigger schools has seemed to be the route of one or two kids that I thought could've played at the next level. This is fine as long as it was for the right reasons.

Being a small school, we have several two and three sport athletes which means accessing our players out of season is a huge challenge. We have two strength training classes during the school year, one each semester...no football class like some programs. Our state that does not allow spring ball, a coach is limited to 7 players that we can coach at any one time over the summer.

So to be quite honest, not that there isn't validity to what some coaches post on here from a program structure and practice organization standpoint. I'm sure it's valid to someone but not to me. So it's not that your not a credible coach, it's just not everything that somebody posts on this board applies to my situation. And vice versa, I understand that not everything I post applies to other people's situations. I don't necessarily value threads on "how to properly manage an 80 player program" or "effectively utilizing an entire 70 man varsity roster" or "two platoon practice organization" or "how to best utilize my 10-man coaching staff." It's not that I'm envious or anything, that information simply does not apply to me in our situation. It may some day but not today. I would say I could read it and learn about my uncertain future but I prefer to focus on the present...the here and now. My mentality is to treat the job I have like it's the last one I'll ever have every single day I'm doing it. And with the timelines we're on as coaches, I personally, don't have time to research topics that do not directly apply to the responsibilities I currently have.

So to summarize, I am a coach that listens to everything on this board from an x's & o's/technique perspective and simply evaluate, with my staff, if our players can be successful doing things that particular way. I don't look at coaches records because like blb said "there are more good football coaches than there are good football programs." I'm not going to shut a coach out who has great ideas but for some reason they haven't worked out where he's at.

Now, from a program structure/practice organization perspective, I'm going to take into account whether or not a coach is in at least a somewhat similar situation. Not all programs, school districts, and communities are created equal. Using the factors, listed above I will assess whether or not an idea could be applied to our program and be effective. For example, there was a thread on the General Board entitled something like "when does your program have the weight room open." We have had an established schedule for four years now that has worked for us and allowed us to be successful each year in building our program.

When we have our weight room open this summer may not matter to some of our kids that live at the edges of our 30 square mile school district with gas at over $4.00/gallon, we probably won't see them. It's unfortunate but it's the reality we face. Now some coaches, particularly the ones that have another high school within a stones throw of their own building couldn't understand this because if their kids really wanted to be there, they could walk. Different situations for different coaches.

I understand that financial strain is everywhere but not to the degree that it's hitting already poverty-stricken, highly unemployed areas of this country and we're trying to coach football here. Only so many coaches on here understand what that is like. With only 4 winning seasons in the past 34 years...yeah, we define success differently around here. Despite all of that, 2011 has a chance to be a great year for us. We could have our 5 winning season in the last 35 years and possibly our 3rd post-season berth in the history of the school.

There are so many variables behind a coach's record that I stopped caring long ago. For example, my best year of coaching BY FAR ended in a 7-4 record. One of my worst years as a coach...9-1. The difference was talent. Our staff took those guys from 2-8 to 7-4 and taught them how to play the game, be a team, and be great student-athletes.

The 9-1 team was just a bunch of athletic dudes who I barely influenced outside of teaching some offensive football concepts. That 9-1 team was so talented our base defense looked like a punt rush team every play- 4-3 Sam/Will Fire EVERY STINKING PLAY. Teams couldn't beat us and our stubborn DC kept calling it regardless of coverage behind it. I was just waiting for someone to burn us...only one team did. They weren't good student-athletes, they weren't a great team, and they sure as hell weren't a pleasure to coach.

I think one of the best ways to evaluate a coach is to try to measure the passion they have for the game and for coaching. I want to hear from the guy that throws all his cards on the table and will coach his a$$ off over 3 consecutive losing seasons to finally go 6-4 with a bunch of overachievers.

I think also when you have had a lot of success you have to fight the feeling of knowing it all or knowing better than others. I know that is a challenge for me, in my first 4 years of coaching was part of 3 state champion teams. I have learned a lot but it doesn't mean that I know best.

So I fight the feeling that I have learned enough. You can see it on some of our staff though, coaches who think they know it all now.