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Post by fantom on Mar 18, 2013 12:42:05 GMT -6
The reason doesn't matter. Both kids missed practice. Both are behind everyone else who attended in preparation. Again the idea is to not put yourself in the position of determining who's reason for missing is "legitimate" and whose is not. In my experience the kids are responsible and they will accept the decision because they were informed of the policy and knew the consequences and the reasons behind the policy. I have no problem with determining which excuses are legitimate. In fact, there are few things that I hate more than blanket "zero-tolerance" policies. We tell the kids that we're getting them ready for the real world but the real world mostly doesn't use "zero tolerance". If you're not usually late for work but are once because there was an accident on the highway you probably won't get fired.
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Post by coachhenry27 on Mar 18, 2013 12:56:02 GMT -6
My policies fit into my philosophy on priorities. From day one I preach that the kids need to have their priorities straight. #1 God/Spirituality #2 Family #3 School/Academics #4 Football For me its pretty straightforward. If I have to miss or be late to football because of a higher priority item's situation or time requirement, I do it. I live with the consequences of my decision and I move on. So many times we as coaches get caught up in this "football is life" mentality. I truly believe that we are meant to develop these young men's character and to help to teach them life lessons through the game of football. Our job is to develop them to their greatest potential, whatever that level may be.
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Post by fantom on Mar 18, 2013 13:02:17 GMT -6
My policies fit into my philosophy on priorities. From day one I preach that the kids need to have their priorities straight. #1 God/Spirituality #2 Family #3 School/Academics #4 Football For me its pretty straightforward. If I have to miss or be late to football because of a higher priority item's situation or time requirement, I do it. I live with the consequences of my decision and I move on. So many times we as coaches get caught up in this "football is life" mentality. I truly believe that we are meant to develop these young men's character and to help to teach them life lessons through the game of football. Our job is to develop them to their greatest potential, whatever that level may be. Yet your policy forces kids to make football their top priority.
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Post by cqmiller on Mar 18, 2013 13:03:09 GMT -6
My policies fit into my philosophy on priorities. From day one I preach that the kids need to have their priorities straight. #1 God/Spirituality #2 Family #3 School/Academics #4 Football For me its pretty straightforward. If I have to miss or be late to football because of a higher priority item's situation or time requirement, I do it. I live with the consequences of my decision and I move on. So many times we as coaches get caught up in this "football is life" mentality. I truly believe that we are meant to develop these young men's character and to help to teach them life lessons through the game of football. Our job is to develop them to their greatest potential, whatever that level may be. Agree... that is why we don't track "excused" or "unexcused". With the 90% thing, if something comes up during the course of the season and they need to get something that is more important than football done, we just document that they were not there and we don't worry about it (especially if the kid lets us know ahead of time... "coach, my mom got in a wreck and I gotta ______". NO WORRIES. That is more important. We set the numbers so that it is fair for everyone... kids who are athletically gifted know that they have to put in as many days as the ungifted kids in order to letter. I've had a lot more GREAT athletes not make letter criteria than I ever have with non-athletes. Used to being spoon-fed everything. We don't baby... set a standard and expect them to meet it. If they do, praise the hell out of them, if they don't... encourage them to meet the standard.
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Post by coachhenry27 on Mar 18, 2013 14:00:29 GMT -6
fantom: My policy encourages them to make good decisions. If i have a higher priority responsibility than I will meet that responsibility. In return I only miss 24 minutes of my life playing a game (an extra-curricular activity). The example was given of a grandmother's funeral. How many times is that going to come up during a football season for one particular player? The kids are OK with the consequences because they have made a good decision based on sound priorities. They know that they wouldn't change that decision if it had to be done a thousand times. There is no shame, no guilt. The guy who missed because of a lower priority reason will have made a bad decision. He has the opportunity to make better decisions in the future or else he can keep making bad choices and eventually lose his incentive/motivation for playing (basically cut himself). Again we are only talking a short time period (12-24 minutes of playing time) to establish a lesson that will follow them for life. Again this policy applies to only a small minority of players on any given team. If that's not the case on your team, maybe you need to examine what could be causing attendance/tardy issues and address those. This works for us and tardies and absences are not a problem.
cqmiller: Couldn't agree more. "set a standard and expect them to meet it. If they do, praise the hell out of them, if they don't... encourage them to meet the standard."
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Post by coach2013 on Mar 18, 2013 14:08:44 GMT -6
I used to do make up conditioning no matter the excuse.
That works well. I might go back to that.
funeral, wedding, cowboys game, doesnt matter, you miss, you make up the practice.
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Post by macdiiddy on Mar 18, 2013 14:16:40 GMT -6
coachhenry27 , But isnt that reinforcing putting football ahead of the other 3. Your scenario makes sense and works if the kid chooses to go to the top 3 priorities (because he is putting football on the back burner for something more important in life). But what if (because we keep using the same example) a kid chooses to not go to his grandmas funeral in fear of missing playing time.
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Post by blb on Mar 18, 2013 14:25:03 GMT -6
Attendance and punctuality is non-negotiable with me. You want to pizz our head coach off in a hurry, be late or miss.
HS Football can teach kids how to make and follow through on commitment. Plus if you're late or absent (unless unavoidable) you're saying your time is more valuable than your teammates or mine, which I find incredibly inconsiderate-disrespectful.
Excused absences are church obligations, family emergencies, illness, or school requirements. That's it.
But we don't bench them for first unexcused. That earns them Special Olympics. They may or may not get demoted.
Second will get them a seat for a game, and third - well, three strikes and you're out. If you get to three what I hear you saying is, "Coach, I don't really want to play Football at our school."
We handle tardies somewhat similarly.
However we rarely have problems in these areas because it is made clear up front, stressed constantly, and our Special Olympics coach does a good job of convincing them they don't want to engage in that particular behavior ever again.
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Post by silkyice on Mar 18, 2013 14:39:38 GMT -6
My policies fit into my philosophy on priorities. From day one I preach that the kids need to have their priorities straight. #1 God/Spirituality #2 Family #3 School/Academics #4 Football For me its pretty straightforward. If I have to miss or be late to football because of a higher priority item's situation or time requirement, I do it. I live with the consequences of my decision and I move on. So many times we as coaches get caught up in this "football is life" mentality. I truly believe that we are meant to develop these young men's character and to help to teach them life lessons through the game of football. Our job is to develop them to their greatest potential, whatever that level may be. That is the most schizophrenic post I have ever read.
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Post by pirates2012 on Mar 18, 2013 15:30:39 GMT -6
not a big fan of punishment conditioning. we do it, but I will go right to playing time in some cases. some kids aren't bothered my it IMO. We had a kid when I was an assistant run and run and run but it never stopped him from showing up late.
second HC took away playing time... he stopped being late.
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Post by coachcb on Mar 19, 2013 6:33:14 GMT -6
Bench them, it's more effective. I agree, however, what if you only have 15-16 kids? I've always thought "next man up" was more effective when I had 30-80, but 15-30 it seems moot bc everyone gets in. We had 12 for an 8-man football team and played several games with 8-9 guys suited up. The rest road the bench. It was effective; the kids stopped skipping practice and screwing around. Honestly, think of it this way; a kid skips a two hour long practice, complete with drills and conditioning and what's his punishment? Thirty minutes of punishment the next day. A lot of our guys jumped on that opportunity.
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Post by peacock1915 on Mar 19, 2013 9:11:11 GMT -6
We do something we called backpacks, the kid takes a 25-45 lb plate and pushes it from sideline to sideline and then lunges with it over head back. We use these for 0's if they get them, and will use them for things such as being late or whatever else this year.
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Post by fantom on Mar 19, 2013 9:16:17 GMT -6
not a big fan of punishment conditioning. we do it, but I will go right to playing time in some cases. some kids aren't bothered my it IMO. We had a kid when I was an assistant run and run and run but it never stopped him from showing up late. second HC took away playing time... he stopped being late. I don't like taking away playing time for many of the reasons that have been mentioned but sometimes a kid doesn't get it the first time. Then you do what you have to do.
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Post by coachorm on Mar 19, 2013 20:24:41 GMT -6
I agree with everyone that is saying the punishment needs to be immediate. We do something we call Man-Builders. Basically they start in the back of the endzone and every 5 yards they will hit their stomach and get back up and continue all the way down the field. Occasionally when they have been really bad we will start at the goal line and they front roll for 25 yards, then crawl on their elbows for 25yds, back to front rolls for 25, and finish with 25yds of army crawl. Another thing our HC/DC does is when they mess up during a play in team or half-line he will run them to the other end of the field and back doing hit-its when he blows his whistle. This does take some time but its only for stupid penalties or when the scout team scores/stops the starters. Also makes them have to be mentally tough because they then have to come back and run the next play while tired.
For playing time we have an offense practice day and a defense practice day. If you miss practice that day you can't start on that side of the ball. This allows kids that have legitimate reasons for missing to know they can't start if they miss but will still play. Of course every players situation is treated individually.
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