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Post by mariner42 on Aug 6, 2015 23:26:39 GMT -6
Starting a new program has always seemed like a fun challenge to me, thought I'd throw out some questions for those who have done it ( jgordon1, I know you have): 1-How did you find out about the school opening if it wasn't in your local area? 2-How did you end up the HC? Was there a lot of competition? 3-How far in advance did you get to start really working on getting things together?
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Post by jgordon1 on Aug 7, 2015 19:34:15 GMT -6
Starting a new program has always seemed like a fun challenge to me, thought I'd throw out some questions for those who have done it ( jgordon1, I know you have): 1-How did you find out about the school opening if it wasn't in your local area? 2-How did you end up the HC? Was there a lot of competition? 3-How far in advance did you get to start really working on getting things together? 1. the school was in my open area 2. I originally didn't apply for the job because I thoght I would not get along w/ the ad. they went through the hiring process and f'ed it up somehow..the principal asked me to apply for the position after it reopened...not really sure how nmuch competition there was. the principa got fired and I wasn't far behind 3 I got started in the 3rd week of feb
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jaydub66
Sophomore Member
Varsity D-Line Coach
Posts: 223
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Post by jaydub66 on Aug 8, 2015 0:04:56 GMT -6
Culture builds winning, winning doesn't build culture.
1. Your primary goal should always be the kids 1st, make sure you have an infrastructure in place to help them on and off the field. Football is unlike any other sport in the country, you have a microscope on all your players and coaches, if someone gets in trouble, the headline in the paper says "(your school) player" and not their name.
2. Bobby Bowden said of building a team, "1st year you lose by a lot, 2nd year you lose by a little, 3rd year you win by a little, 4th year you with by a lot" so you'll need time and a positive mindset. You won't walk in day one with Dom Bosco or St. Thomas Aquinis. They were built over years and years.
3. Simple playbook. From top to bottom, keep things simple, rep fundamentals, rep plays, rep situations, but keep things simple. Coaches can understand complex concepts, most kids won't
4. Simplicity is multiplicity. College football you can recruit, high school football you can't. You have to work with what you got. Some towns you have a history of small kids who are fast, some towns have a history of big strong kids, regardless, you get what the town gives you. If you have a simple playbook, you can change it year by year. Say you run a zone blocking, one year you may be two TEs and run down hill, the next you are in 4 WRs and running zone read, but the system stays the same.
5. Coaches and chain of command. Make sure you bring in the right coaches. You really don't need more than 10, you can probably get away with 5-7. HC, OC, DC, DL, OL, Offensive Skills, LB, 2 guys for the freshmen team. One of them can be the strength and condition guy and try to have one of them with a special education or behavior disorder degree cert, helps a lot.
6. Build a relationship with the feeder teams, the pop warner or the midget league teams, build relationships with those coaches and those parents, go to the games and show you care. It stops kids from leaving. You can even give those youth coaches your playbook and have them learning your offense/defense so it's less of a learning curve from 8th grade to HS
just stuff off the top of my head
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Post by coachbdud on Aug 8, 2015 1:06:56 GMT -6
An interesting idea down the line that I've only seen done once
(Assuming you start with all freshman in year one )
Play down their junior year on JV... Wait til you have seniors to have a varsity
Newest school in our league did that. They of course dominated that all junior JV year, were decent their first year with seniors (finally had a senior class so had all 3 levels)
And had a run of a few years where they were really competitive, down year last year, but overall for a new school in one of the best leagues in all of NorCal they've been competitive
Most schools I've seen start playing varsity in year 3 when they get juniors. They get destroyed that year, and kids never dully recover, lose interest, etc.
Just a thought
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Post by coachklee on Aug 8, 2015 7:59:09 GMT -6
An interesting idea down the line that I've only seen done once (Assuming you start with all freshman in year one ) Play down their junior year on JV... Wait til you have seniors to have a varsity Newest school in our league did that. They of course dominated that all junior JV year, were decent their first year with seniors (finally had a senior class so had all 3 levels) And had a run of a few years where they were really competitive, down year last year, but overall for a new school in one of the best leagues in all of NorCal they've been competitive Most schools I've seen start playing varsity in year 3 when they get juniors. They get destroyed that year, and kids never dully recover, lose interest, etc. Just a thought A new school in Michigan did exactly the same. The district had been 1 school up until the mid-2000s & then split into a new "East" school & the original HS. The east was only new groups of incoming freshmen so the football coaching staff only has freshmen year 1, sophomores year 2, juniors year 3...but they stayed JV only until year 4 when they actually had seniors. I think they qualified for play-offs year 8...not bad for no tradition. Makes sense as I know there are times, especially at some smaller schools where a senior or junior group that is both small in #s & have minimal talent results in pulling up sophomores & sometimes freshmen that aren't quite ready...if those young guys learn quickly & the culture is decent it usually results in a good season 1 or 2 years down the road. If the culture sucks those places would often be better off having JV only.
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Post by fantom on Aug 8, 2015 11:10:06 GMT -6
2. Bobby Bowden said of building a team, "1st year you lose by a lot, 2nd year you lose by a little, 3rd year you win by a little, 4th year you with by a lot" so you'll need time and a positive mindset. You won't walk in day one with Dom Bosco or St. Thomas Aquinis. They were built over years and years. And there's one of the problems of a startup program. The people who do the hiring are not necessarily patient enough to stick with that timetable. What I've seen a lot id that when the startup program finally gets successful, it's with a different guy coaching the team.
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Post by fantom on Aug 8, 2015 11:17:58 GMT -6
Starting a new program has always seemed like a fun challenge to me, thought I'd throw out some questions for those who have done it ( jgordon1, I know you have): 1-How did you find out about the school opening if it wasn't in your local area? 2-How did you end up the HC? Was there a lot of competition? 3-How far in advance did you get to start really working on getting things together? The first thing that you want to do is make sure that the school is big enough to sustain football. Around here the only public schools that start football is a brand new school. If an existing school starts a program the school probably isn't very big or well funded. There were two local privates that started playing football but they were too small, couldn't get enough kids, and had to give it up. For example, i don't know the enrollment of one of the school but on their web site they had a picture of the faculty. The entire staff of the upper school, from grade 6 through 12, was twenty people. That includes the faculty, administration, custodians, etc.. Well, no kidding they couldn't get enough kids.
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Post by acarrick on Aug 11, 2015 8:15:46 GMT -6
An interesting idea down the line that I've only seen done once (Assuming you start with all freshman in year one ) Play down their junior year on JV... Wait til you have seniors to have a varsity Newest school in our league did that. They of course dominated that all junior JV year, were decent their first year with seniors (finally had a senior class so had all 3 levels) And had a run of a few years where they were really competitive, down year last year, but overall for a new school in one of the best leagues in all of NorCal they've been competitive Most schools I've seen start playing varsity in year 3 when they get juniors. They get destroyed that year, and kids never dully recover, lose interest, etc. Just a thought A new school in Michigan did exactly the same. The district had been 1 school up until the mid-2000s & then split into a new "East" school & the original HS. The east was only new groups of incoming freshmen so the football coaching staff only has freshmen year 1, sophomores year 2, juniors year 3...but they stayed JV only until year 4 when they actually had seniors. I think they qualified for play-offs year 8...not bad for no tradition. Makes sense as I know there are times, especially at some smaller schools where a senior or junior group that is both small in #s & have minimal talent results in pulling up sophomores & sometimes freshmen that aren't quite ready...if those young guys learn quickly & the culture is decent it usually results in a good season 1 or 2 years down the road. If the culture sucks those places would often be better off having JV only. Apparently my MI high school did it wrong, but we had all 4 grades. Year 1 we played varsity with 2 seniors... it wasn't pretty. Luckily I was a FR at the time
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Post by marinercoach1 on Aug 11, 2015 10:46:30 GMT -6
First year coaching at a school on the central coast of california. The thing that attracted me to the school is the amount of kids from the town that have STARRED at nearby schools. The problem is getting the kids in the town to come back to the school. WINNING is obviously a cure-all but I think establishing a foundation and identity is the toughest challenge for us.
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