wvcoach
Junior Member
[F4:@coach_wellman]
Posts: 288
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Post by wvcoach on Sept 23, 2012 7:06:45 GMT -6
I see a lot of surprise at the fact that I consider 800 students a large population. I'm in West Virginia. We only have around 120 football-playing high schools, and my alma mater is the second largest AA school (out of three classes) at 436 kids. You guys must be in a vastly different world from mine! Sent from my iPhone using ProBoards Second SMALLEST at 436. Excuse the typo. We're divided into AAA, AA, and A. AAA: 778 students or more (largest school in the state has 1857) AA: 429-777 A: 0-428 (Smallest football-playing school has 104 students) The numbers at the small schools continue to dwindle due to consolidation and other factors. I firmly believe 8-man football will arrive here in the near future. Sent from my iPhone using ProBoards
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Post by davishfc on Sept 23, 2012 8:29:02 GMT -6
The bottom line for me, is administrative support. If you do not have that, you cannot overcome it. Everything else can be overcame, imho. [/size][/quote] I completely agree. It's absolutely vital, as a head coach, to have administrative support regardless of the size of school.
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Post by davishfc on Sept 23, 2012 8:55:13 GMT -6
just comes down to personal preference This is true. As coaches were making their own case for large schools, I read a number of factors that ruled out small schools on the part of some coaches. The point that I was trying to make is that just because a school is small doesn't mean it doesn't have the necessary resources for success. Likewise, just because a school is large doesn't mean it has the necessary resources for success. So when choosing a school in a hypothetical nature like this thread implies, I would choose the school that the likelihood for success is higher regardless of size. I always keep in mind that bigger doesn't always mean better. I believe that all coaches seek out a situation where the likelihood of success is higher. If that's the case, I believe we should look much deeper than an assumption that the numbers are higher at larger schools and that large schools are better off financially. Bottom line here is until dubber chimed in with "administrative support" everything else was relative. Administrative support is a must that no size school can guarantee. This is a deciding factor for success that a coach must wholeheartedly believe he has if the program is to succeed.
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Post by coachcb on Sept 24, 2012 12:51:17 GMT -6
I prefer smaller schools, as long as football numbers are big enough to effectively run a practice. Small-town athletics are awesome in this state because the communities are small and tight-nit. Football, basketball and volleyball games are the major source of entertainment in these towns. There are incredible rivalries between the schools; it can be intense. Plus, you only need a couple of guys on the staff to make it work. You don't need to hire and manage a ton of coaches: just find two reliable cats and go to work. The other side of the coin is finding those two cats in a small town. That can be an issue. It's really just a matter of getting smart, coachable people, not necessarily football guys. I found a para-professional and a counselor in the school who were interested and did my best to coach them up. They're both smart guys so they picked up on most things quickly and did a decent job for us. We were limited in a few offensive aspects (3-step game, option) but you'd get that with most first year coaches. I had a few other guys that were interested and one of them had prior coaching experience. But, I weeded them out through the interview process and then went and recruited the other assistants.
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Post by coachcb on Sept 24, 2012 12:56:50 GMT -6
A: 0-428 (Smallest football-playing school has 104 students) The numbers at the small schools continue to dwindle due to consolidation and other factors. I firmly believe 8-man football will arrive here in the near future. Sent from my iPhone using ProBoards 104 kids? That's a BIG 8-man school around here. We played schools with a population of 40 kids when I coached 8-man.
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