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Post by spos21ram on Feb 11, 2014 17:34:22 GMT -6
No we don't have to play them. Once our season starts the best players play. Sometimes that means a kid who never went to off season workouts starts. Our evaluations for starters, back-ups...the depth chart, starts when our season officially starts which is mid-august. Do you feel like there is accountability in your offseason program? You basically have no way to hold kids accountable. This doesn't hurt your program? I'm not saying anything you are saying or doing is wrong. Just interested in the approach and what your off seasons are like. Where our weight lifting program sucks is from the end of the football season to the end of the school year. We have so many kids involved in other sports which is fine, and some non winter sports players do lift regularly, but not nearly as many as we would like. Where our lifting is at it's best, is when we start summer lifting in mid-june until camp starts. This is when it finally clicks that the season is right around the corner and kids start showing up. Our summer lifting is roughly 6-7 weeks long. During this time we get at minimum 85% attendance. Then once the season starts our lifting program sucks again. This falls directly on our staff. On our school campus, the weight room use to be down stairs from the locker room. This was ideal. So many of the players would just walk down stairs and lift even on non lifting days. This is how it was when I played here. I lifted 4 days a week in season. Then when our school got remodeled and the junior high became another high school building, our locker room got moved to the other building. Now our weight room is about a quarter of a mile away from our locker room. I'm not the HC, but I'm on staff so the blame falls on me and the entire staff. Our HC is a hall of fame coach, but our weight program has declined since our locker room moved. In season our weight program is now only 2 days and we only have a handful of kids that lift extra. Now to answer your question about accountability. Wheather not having mandatory lifting hurts or helps doesnt really matter since we cant make it mandatory. As I stated in a previous post, we cannot penalize a kid for missing off season workouts. That's just how it is in most places around here. Benching a kid in season because he missed voluntary workouts before the official start of the season, is still penalizing a player for off season stuff. If the player or parents came and asked us why their son is not playing, and we said because he never came in the off season, then we would get in trouble. If this player blew off in season stuff then yes we would penalize him. What we don't do, but NEED to start doing is have some incentives. There have been some very good threads on here about how to increase attendance, when you can't make it mandatory. One great idea i read on here was having permanent lifting groups in the off season and each group has to accumulate a certain number of weight. If you're group has no shows, then you will not hit your goal and not win the incentives. I'm going to lay out a plan for my HC and see what happens. I really feel that the players holding each other accountable lacks greatly from December to June for us, but the staff doesn't get on kids as much as they would during summer lifting either. When the summer lifting comes around, all of a sudden every kid wants to show up and hold each other accountable. We need to get that to happen earlier in the year, not June 24th.
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Post by blb on Feb 11, 2014 17:54:38 GMT -6
That's a pretty severe attitude for a HS coach. Very punitive.
Laying it off on "their buddies can't trust you anymore" is irresponsible. I'll bet in 98% of cases their peers would welcome them back on the team.
Maybe we have a different culture- because they don't welcome them at all.
Have you given them a chance?
From your explanation of letting them work out and then telling them when "tryouts" come they can't play doesn't sound like other kids have any input.
The "different culture" is coming from you, coach.
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Post by fantom on Feb 11, 2014 17:55:28 GMT -6
No we don't have to play them. Once our season starts the best players play. Sometimes that means a kid who never went to off season workouts starts. Our evaluations for starters, back-ups...the depth chart, starts when our season officially starts which is mid-august. In our state we can't make the offseason mandatory either. Theoretically we may not be able to use the offseason to evaluate players but we do. We can''t cut but admin wouldn't tell us who to play. Still, best players play. If a guy who didn't have a great offseason is clearly the best player he plays.
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Post by spos21ram on Feb 11, 2014 18:19:37 GMT -6
No we don't have to play them. Once our season starts the best players play. Sometimes that means a kid who never went to off season workouts starts. Our evaluations for starters, back-ups...the depth chart, starts when our season officially starts which is mid-august. In our state we can't make the offseason mandatory either. Theoretically we may not be able to use the offseason to evaluate players but we do. We can''t cut but admin wouldn't tell us who to play. Still, best players play. If a guy who didn't have a great offseason is clearly the best player he plays. Sounds like the same situation. I probably shouldn't have said we don't do any evaluating in the off season, it's impossible not to. Even if it's just talking as a staff after workouts. "So and so looked great today, man he has improved". And it's not like it happens all the time where your best players never show up to any workouts and then all of a sudden the season comes around and they never miss anything in season or ever get in trouble. Usually if a player never shows up in the off season, they'll end up missing practices and won't be playing much anyway.
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lbjames
Sophomore Member
Posts: 242
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Post by lbjames on Feb 11, 2014 20:14:27 GMT -6
If this player blew off in season stuff then yes we would penalize him. What we don't do, but NEED to start doing is have some incentives. There have been some very good threads on here about how to increase attendance, when you can't make it mandatory. One great idea i read on here was having permanent lifting groups in the off season and each group has to accumulate a certain number of weight. If you're group has no shows, then you will not hit your goal and not win the incentives. I'm going to lay out a plan for my HC and see what happens. I really feel that the players holding each other accountable lacks greatly from December to June for us, but the staff doesn't get on kids as much as they would during summer lifting either. When the summer lifting comes around, all of a sudden every kid wants to show up and hold each other accountable. We need to get that to happen earlier in the year, not June 24th. I think you nailed it here. Some nice incentives, T-Shirts, food, etc. involving groups would be a good start. I think once you got it rolling with incentives the whole thing would become contagious. Good luck to you coach with making it happen.
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Post by IronmanFootball on Feb 12, 2014 7:08:21 GMT -6
Maybe we have a different culture- because they don't welcome them at all.
Have you given them a chance?
From your explanation of letting them work out and then telling them when "tryouts" come they can't play doesn't sound like other kids have any input.
The "different culture" is coming from you, coach.
We just started this tougher approach the past 12 months or so. We have a school-wide "you quit, you can't play a different sport until your last season is over" policy in our athletic dept. We had to reverse a culture of quitting say a football mid-game (had 2 soccer kids quit mid-game last year alone) to go to open gym for basketball. I think it's a good 'different culture' we have brewing. They hold each other accountable, tell each other that if you quit- you've quit on family, and they don't want guys back or around that don't make workouts. With the off-season available to all sports and genders, it breaks down that desire to make it football season b as coaches. I have sometimes 2-5 different workouts going at once. Depends on the month. In the summer I get pretty much every sport both male and female in the weight room. It's actually fun for me to work with new kids. Our school board covers one K-12 school, so as long as I know what they want, it's much easier than some big district full of lobbyists and lawyers. This is our first season with "spring tryouts" we shall see how it goes. We've never had to cut before.
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Post by spos21ram on Feb 12, 2014 8:37:27 GMT -6
Have you given them a chance?
From your explanation of letting them work out and then telling them when "tryouts" come they can't play doesn't sound like other kids have any input.
The "different culture" is coming from you, coach.
We just started this tougher approach the past 12 months or so. We have a school-wide "you quit, you can't play a different sport until your last season is over" policy in our athletic dept. We had to reverse a culture of quitting say a football mid-game (had 2 soccer kids quit mid-game last year alone) to go to open gym for basketball. I think it's a good 'different culture' we have brewing. They hold each other accountable, tell each other that if you quit- you've quit on family, and they don't want guys back or around that don't make workouts. With the off-season available to all sports and genders, it breaks down that desire to make it football season b as coaches. I have sometimes 2-5 different workouts going at once. Depends on the month. In the summer I get pretty much every sport both male and female in the weight room. It's actually fun for me to work with new kids. Our school board covers one K-12 school, so as long as I know what they want, it's much easier than some big district full of lobbyists and lawyers. This is our first season with "spring tryouts" we shall see how it goes. We've never had to cut before. That policy doesn't say anything about if a kid quits, he can't play next season. So who's rule is that? Sounds like the school's rule is that if you quit, you can't play another sport until the current sport season is over.
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Post by blb on Feb 12, 2014 9:01:44 GMT -6
Every school should have rule prohibiting kids that quit one sport from beginning to workout (Open Gym e.g.) for another.
Once worked at a smallish school (enrollment 550) where during school year no sport could begin until previous season was over - no Open Gyms, throwing-hitting in gym, not even Sign-Up meeting.
Pretty good policy for schools that have to "share" athletes and discourage specialization as well as quitting.
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Post by fantom on Feb 12, 2014 11:00:01 GMT -6
Every school should have rule prohibiting kids that quit one sport from beginning to workout (Open Gym e.g.) for another.
Once worked at a smallish school (enrollment 550) where during school year no sport could begin until previous season was over - no Open Gyms, throwing-hitting in gym, not even Sign-Up meeting.
Pretty good policy for schools that have to "share" athletes and discourage specialization as well as quitting. I don't agree. Sometimes quitting makes sense. If a kid is sitting the bench in basketball, for example, and wants to get into the weight room instead, why shouldn't he? If the coach of another sport is running a lousy program why make him stay with it if he wants to work out at another sport? Before somebody asks, it has happened to me. Last year a kid didn't want to do his conditioning so he took his pads off and climbed toe fence to a baseball workout. Oh well. We have a good relationship with the baseball coach so I know that that wasn't his doing. If the kid doesn't want to be there, see ya.
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Post by blb on Feb 12, 2014 11:04:52 GMT -6
Every school should have rule prohibiting kids that quit one sport from beginning to workout (Open Gym e.g.) for another.
Once worked at a smallish school (enrollment 550) where during school year no sport could begin until previous season was over - no Open Gyms, throwing-hitting in gym, not even Sign-Up meeting.
Pretty good policy for schools that have to "share" athletes and discourage specialization as well as quitting. I don't agree. Sometimes quitting makes sense. If a kid is sitting the bench in basketball, for example, and wants to get into the weight room instead, why shouldn't he? If the coach of another sport is running a lousy program why make him stay with it if he wants to work out at another sport? Before somebody asks, it has happened to me. Last year a kid didn't want to do his conditioning so he took his pads off and climbed toe fence to a baseball workout. Oh well. We have a good relationship with the baseball coach so I know that that wasn't his doing. If the kid doesn't want to be there, see ya.
The flip side is there probably was another kid cut to make room for that Basketball player.
And how much time did you "waste" coaching that Football player who went "over the fence"?
Having policies about quitting make kids think twice about their commitments before starting a season.
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Post by fantom on Feb 12, 2014 11:17:12 GMT -6
I don't agree. Sometimes quitting makes sense. If a kid is sitting the bench in basketball, for example, and wants to get into the weight room instead, why shouldn't he? If the coach of another sport is running a lousy program why make him stay with it if he wants to work out at another sport? Before somebody asks, it has happened to me. Last year a kid didn't want to do his conditioning so he took his pads off and climbed toe fence to a baseball workout. Oh well. We have a good relationship with the baseball coach so I know that that wasn't his doing. If the kid doesn't want to be there, see ya.
The flip side is there probably was another kid cut to make room for that Basketball player.
And how much time did you "waste" coaching that Football player who went "over the fence"?
Having policies about quitting make kids think twice about their commitments before starting a season.
Well, the basketball coach can call that kid he cut back. The baseball kid? His heart was never in it. Great athlete who wasn't playing anywhere near his potential. He had lost playing time at WR and wasn't in the 2-deep on defense. Should have been. Could have been a great player but wasn't. He's a legitimate baseball prospect, though. He'll definitely play D.1 baseball and may get drafted. He's a good kid. Wish he'd given football a chance but he never did even when he was here.
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Post by blb on Feb 12, 2014 11:29:43 GMT -6
One of the things HS Football (if not all HS sports) should teach kids is how to make and follow through on a commitment.
51% of marriages in US end in divorce. If kids don't see commitment at home, how-where ARE they going to learn it?
In order to truly "get it," there has to be consequences for NOT finishing what they start - like alimony!
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Post by spos21ram on Feb 12, 2014 12:55:10 GMT -6
One big difference between football and say bball, baseball, softball, volleyball and soccer is that normally, football doesn't make cuts. I'm a head baseball coach and if someone from my team quit on bad terms the year before and was a hassle to me, there's a good chance I would cut this kid if I didn't see an improvement in attitude the following year. If football we can't do this....here anyway,
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