Just a sad state of selfishness

jd -

I think you and I work at the same school!

;D

We haven't had a lot of code violations but our participation is down. Of course so is enrollment (from 511 three years ago to 421).

We had only 22 varsity Football players (including one Soccer kid who kicked for us) last Fall. My first year we didn't have enough Sophomores for a JV team, possible we will not have enough for a Freshman team this season.

Our girls' Track team has only 6-7 and there is no JV Softball squad this Spring due to numbers.

In weight room yesterday our RG-MLB said, "There's a lot of lazy kids in our town, Coach."

jd, I was in a spot like that two jobs ago. There was a LOT of drugs and alcohol.

Year I left Senior class graduation edition of school paper bragged about being the "worst class in school history" with a rehash of all the negative things they had done - couldn't believe administration allowed them to publish that.

In 2001 we won first conference championship in 31 years and went to playoffs for first time ever. In eight years I've been gone they've won 19 games total and are on their third head coach.

If you can leave and get your kids out of that environment without taking too big a hit in the wallet, I suggest you do so.

The last public school I coached had lockdowns, I.D. badges, campus patrols and security, rude students and apathetic parents.

Got a coaching position at a Catholic school, and all, and I mean ALL of that disappeared. The student deportment is exemplary, no campus security is necessary and it has been the most pleasant atmosphere I've ever worked.

Is it really that bad? Are there NO good kids? Is this problem more pronounced at small schools?

jd,

I think things like you're dealing with now are cyclical. You said it was once a proud tradition so it must be a relatively new phenomenon for your school. Sadly some groups like the 'weakened warriors' take some of the middle kids with them. Clear them out, concentrate on the kids who want to do well. Eventually this group and its followers will graduate, grow up or go to jail.

Kind of same situation I am in... but I think overall its beginning to be more accepted for younger kids to dring and go whatever...

Have 2 different sophomores whose parents hold partys for kids at their house! WHO DOES THIS?

Cheech and Chong formed in 1971, and Animal House came out in 1978, so there aren't many guys on here (OJW excepted) who can claim that as an excuse.

I think either the area has changed, or this is a temporary blip. It will take a couple of truly special students to break the mould over four years and bring the others with them. All you can do is look for them and facilitate them when they arrive.

There are good kids...LOTS of 'em.

The problem in our district is that we have never been good in any sports at all. The community WANTS to have great teams but, because of a long history of being noncompetitive, they don't know where to start.

The other thing that makes it tough is that our school is in the top small-school football conference in the state. Every year, we have anywhere from 3-5 teams in our conference that are legitimate contenders for a state title (and often win it). In a conference like that, every week is a dogfight...there are no creampuffs on the schedule. Basically, what it comes down to is that we are the creampuff...we have turned into the school that everyone else wants to play for homecoming.

About 10 minutes down the road from us is a school that has won 3 state championships and has a head coach who has won 225 games in his career (currently ranked in the top 20 all-time in our state). The people in our community are forever comparing us to that school..."why can't we have teams like ________?" "Why aren't we winning championships like ______?" What the people in our community don't understand is that it takes a ton of work by the coaches and athletes and support from the community, teaching staff, and administration to build high school sports programs that are consistently competitive, year after year.

In our community, parents want the championships but they don't realize or aren't willing to commit to the level of buy-in necessary to create an atmosphere in which excellence is simply expected. Our parents want to go from where we are right now (the bottom of our conference) to a state title contender. But they want to skip all the hard work that is required to accomplish that.

Other problem is our youth football program in town is not run by the school. A community organization runs it and it is simply awful...just think of every terrible thing you have ever heard about in youth sports and that pretty much sums up our youth football program here.

Right now, we have a couple paid assistant coaching spots open for our high school program but no one wants them (I'm not a coach there) even though the spots have been open since January. Our head coach...he is a nice enough guy but he just doesn't know what he is doing and he has been allowed to do that for the better part of the last 10 years. Even though we have the second biggest enrollment in our conference, we consistently field the smallest teams. The good athletes in our school don't want to play football because they know the coaches are incompetent. I'm sure that we will fill those spots, but we will most likely end up with a couple slapdicks who are basically fans with whistles.

As bad as we have been, we are about to hit rock bottom and then start digging...I would not be surprised in the least if we have an 0-27 coming up the next 3 years. Our incoming senior class...some nice kids, but zero athletes. Our incoming junior class has never won a high school football game. They are 0-18 between their freshmen and sophomore classes with over half of those games being running clocks against them. And the incoming sophomore and freshmen classes really have never won anything on any previous level of any sport. So, we are in big trouble.

That's absurd. Up in Smoke was the #12 movie of 1978, Cheech and Chong won a Grammy in 1973. Animal House grossed 141 million. More recently, Dazed and Confused came out in 1993 and is set in 1976, Pulp Fiction came out in 1994. It makes no sense to argue that in 1995 people started pinching out kids that were drug fiends where before they'd been analogues of Beaver Cleaver. To argue such is pure fogeyism.

I grew up on The Three Stooges (haven't decided yet whether to see the movie) but have yet to brain a co-worker with a monkey wrench.

Well, I'll be on a new staff this year so maybe I spoke too soon.

Try this.

JD, we have pretty much the same make up in student population but more like 55% Hispanic. Also in a rural community here in Texas. The ones that aren't Hispanic are Germans or Bohemians so they start drinking at an early age. Nothing we can do about it, it's their culture and has been for years. The parents for the most part don't allow their kids to get out of control.

What we have in our favor is that the parents our very supportive. Our district still allows us to swing the board and the parents want us to use it when needed. We coach our players hard and they respond.

Because we are a small school we have several that 3 or more sports, which is a good thing because it keeps them busy.