How to make it so kids want to win when used to losing

I have the same issue...kids who are conditioned to lose...and im trying to win.

Its a fear of success almost, we only make mental mistakes when we are in scoring position. Otherwise we play like a polished team. Our ONLY (not exaggerating) scores have been from 45+ yards out or special teams.

Id love to hear some ideas as well...

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I've coached at a school like that before and it was awful. We started out 0-4, then won our Homecoming game for the first time in many years. Kids promptly started quitting and stopped trying. It was as if they'd gotten their quota of wins for the year, so now it was time to pack it in.

The first place to start looking in these positions is at the demeanor of the coaches. If the coaches lose it or come out flat and passionless in every game, so will the kids. If the coaches act like it's the end of the world every time a mistake happens, so will the kids. It's on us to lead by example through body language, tone, and energy. It's a delicate mix between getting kids fired up and keeping them on a focused, even keel.

Then you need to back up all that talk of benching those who repeatedly make the same mistakes. Get as many kids involved as you can so they all feel a real stake in the outcome, rather than having 16 kids getting all the PT while 30 stand on the sidelines as spectators in jerseys. That will improve the energy and intensity, as well as the morale for the future. If a kid still brings it every play when you're losing, then he's someone you need to be playing somewhere.

Then you need to push the energy, intensity, and fun at practice to keep them from lagging during the grind of the season. Late season on a losing team flat out sucks for everyone.

It's not easy, and much of it really comes down to setting the tone in the offseason and then getting momentum via a strong start. Sometimes, what the kids get at home or hear from their peers in the community make it very, very difficult to change their mindset. Address that and put the onus on the players to prove those people wrong and take the wins.

It's not a bad idea to be stingier with praise and really tear into the team when you are leading so they don't let up. This is all part of learning how to win.

That mentality of winning one game and thinking that was an accomplishment is something I'll never wrap my mind around.  The senior class we had that year had won a total of 4 games since 3rd grade (3 of them in their first 3 years of HS, including a 2 win season as sophomores), so I guess it was all about their own expectations.

The kids strutted around and acted like they won state when we got our lone win that season, then 4 out of 32 of them quit or "got injured" over the weekend while half of them no-showed the next 2 days of practice.  It was the most frustrating experience I've ever had as a coach.

How do you fix it is my question?

If there was a simple answer, then everyone would be masters of turning programs like that around.

Push them hard in practice, push them hard in the game, and keep your heads about you as a coaching staff because the kids take their cues from you. That'll be a start.

Do your kids get down on each other when things go bad and start pointing fingers? They may need to be coached to think positively and pick each other up. Point out games they may have seen on TV over the weekend where some bad things happened for the winning team, but they were able to endure it. That is what your team must do. You must coach and ingrain a psychology of expectations and resilience. Simulate bad stuff happening at practice. One of my favorite phrases as a coach has become "just keep playing football" and I say it whenever a kid is hanging his head after a mistake.

Sometimes the culture and psychology of a particular group of kids will be there regardless of what you do as coaches. Until they learn to win and believe in themselves by actually winning a few games, and then learn to want more of it, things won'f change.

I was at a school that went 0-9 our first year. Good kids: just didn't know how to win. We started breaking things down into "tiny victories". Ex: We filmed team O, and I told the OL I was grading every play based on assignment only. If you went toward the right guy, I gave that a "+". After a couple days of that, I expanded to grading on assignment AND correct footwork. After a couple days, I expanded to assignment, feet, and finishing a block to the whistle. That was my philosophy for our entire summer and preseason practices. And we got better on offense. Won our first 2 games with a good running game. What I took from that was this: break down your positions, set baby-set goals, and only critique those things! Our first year I would critique on specific aspects of OL play that a kid from the 0-9 team would not know about or how to execute!

How do you challenge them?

I agree with this.  Breakdown the fundamentals of your program into the smallest details, teach them the way you want, rep those fundamentals, and demand excellence.  That's the only "magic potion" I have ever seen work.

Put them in adverse situations see how they overcome. Be demanding but positive. I also think kids now a days don't take what coaches say as gospel. You have to explain the process to them. 

I think some of it is the way coaches carry and portray themselves. You tell the kids you're going to win because you're a winner. You don't care what happened last year. A kid says he'll try to do something, no no no, you're going to do this. They try at school x we do it here at wherever. We took over at my alma mater and the best season in 10 years was 7-3. We are 43-4 in year 4 with 1 state title, and a runner up. The school had only ever made the semis 3 times ever. We've had good kids but a lot has to do with mentality of the kids. I believe as coaches we instill that. If the kids don't believe it will happen it won't.

I faced a similar situation. When I came to my current school as OC, we had one winning season in 30 years. The kids were conditioned that mediocrity is ok. In our first meeting with the players our head coach talked about turning things around, but that no matter what commitment was more important than talent. We lost a few talented older players that year and have lost many talented younger players in the proceeding years because they did not live up to the standards of the program. We only have one rule and that is to not do anything that brings discredit to your school, team, family, etc. This gives you broad latitude to deal with kids who may not want to get on board. Getting everyone to buy in (which is hard) is the first key in my opinion.
Second, kids have to learn to compete with themselves before they can compete with others. This starts in the weight room. Many times programs like this and kids like this have the attitude that when it gets hard, quitting is easier than fighting through. This is where the weight room comes in. Make it manditory (or as much as you can). If you are losing anyway, you might as well lose with players who care and are committed.
Third, you have to link up with your feeder programs. I don't believe they need to have the same offense or defense as you, necissarily, though that would be nice, but they must share the same vision. Bring these coaches from the pee-wee programs and middle school programs and treat them like they are part of the family. This relationship will pay off as these guys can have a huge impact on not only where a kid plays, but if they play. It will take a few years, but it will pay off.

Fourth, I think you need to play a realistic schedule. When kids expect to lose, you have to give them chances to win. We have scheduled some teams that we felt would be competitive but that we could win against. It turns out that we were better than expected and some of these teams have been not as good as expected, but this happens when you schedule 3 years in advance. The main thing though is that the kids got some wins and now they expect to win. Eventually, next year for us, we have upgraded our schedule to be much more competitive because we feel that we competitive in our district and that the more competitive non district games will help us prepare for our district. We couldn't do this before, we felt, because wins, over anyone, were more important than good games, but losses vs better teams. We needed to build excitement in the program and wins do that. Nobody is going to talk about how you almost beat those teams but ended up 1-9. Kids want to win. The more wins, the more kids should come out.

Finally, I would say to do something different, but sound on offense. We started as a spread team, but couldn't throw the ball. We had double wing in as our goalline package, but it slowly morphed into our base package. THe next year we ran balanced single wing and this year we are still running a version of single wing. Since putting in this offense we have been averaging well over 300 yards a game and have set every offensive record in our school's (not stellar) history. THis has been a sense of pride for our kids. We are different, we do things different and we embrace it as our identity.
We felt like this gave us the best chance to compete and it has. I do not believe you are going to beat anyone that is better than you on a significant basis doing the things that they do. In our area, the spread is popular so we feel that what we do gives teams trouble because they arent used to it. Have I caught flack from parents, fans, etc, because we don't throw the ball as much or it isn't traditional. But in 2 1/2 years of running the single wing/double wing we are 17-11. This is coming from a program that had one winning season in 30 years prior to last year.

I took over in 2012 and we had our first non losing regular season in 20 plus years, we went 7-4 last year and are currently 5-1. I have been blessed with some great athletes, but this foundation was laid when the former HC took over in 2008.

This may be one of the best football sayings I have ever seen!   Consider it stolen my friend.