"I'll sleep when I'm dead"?

The advent of Hudl has made "grinding" pointless.

8 hours? Of sleep? Geez.


I'm not one of those grinders, and I love sleeping in when I can. But, I just can't do a full eight. My standard is about 5-6.

I know it's not good, but I just can't do it. My body has become accustomed to it, no matter how sleepy I get.

In this topic there always seems to be a line that takes you over to that "grinder" type guy. In yall's opinion what puts you in that "grinder" category?

Think six hours of sleep is enough?

Think again. Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, discovered that some people have a gene that enables them to do well on six hours of sleep a night. This gene, however, is very rare, appearing in less than 3% of the population. For the other 97% of us, six hours doesn’t come close to cutting it.


www.helpguide.org/articles/sleep/how-much-sleep-do-you-need.htm

I think you're a grinder if you can't walk away from something football related because of the amount of time you've spent on it. It doesn't matter if it's done well or not, if you haven't spent x amount of hours on it then it feels incomplete to you. That's when you start crossing into grinder mode of thinking.

This study?

newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/our-ancestors-probably-didnt-get-8-hours-a-night-either

EXACTLY!

If you work 18 hour days, and still lose, well- players didnt respond or werent paying attention, ball didn't bounce your way, other team just wanted it more, etc.

You do the exact same thing, but work only 12 hours a day- you lost because you were lazy; and you are canned.

Grinding in many cases is keeping up with the joneses for the sake of not looking bad

I think we are no different than players. After a while we become counter productive if we do something for so long without stop.

There is definitely a point of diminishing returns.

Here's my take on grinding based on my 14 years in this profession:

1. There's a helluva lot more to life than coaching football. I work hard at it - which is probably true of just about anyone who would come to a board like this to learn - but I'm not going to devote crazy hours to it that deprive me of other experiences.

2. Efficiency is the key. Have a plan, be organized, have a real purpose to everything, get to the point, and cut out the BS sessions after practice and go home when the work is done. There's no virtue in taking five hours to do something that should take three if done efficiently. No wasted time or redundancy.

3. You can grind your brain down to a nub at all hours of the night while your opposing coach spends his evenings watching Breaking Bad episodes on Netflix and turns in early. But if he has the next Herschel Walker in the backfield and you have a bunch of slowpokes, he's still going to kick your a$$ Friday night. With that said, I think it's important to understand that while some coaches are better than others - and hard work plays into that - there are no miracle workers. Regardless of what you do, winning and losing is still mostly about the Jimmy's and Joe's. So don't beat your head over it. Most losses will happen because you're outgunned, not because you went to bed before midnight.

Some of you may remember KCoach, forerunner to Footballscoop. On it's message board, a lot of the posts were from GA's complaining about how hard they worked. Almost all of them were posted during working hours. 

I think you guys are wrong a GRINDER is someone who works.

OVERWORKING is not gridning.. But then again your thoughts on overworking might be different than someone's else's..

I think the word is over used on both sides. SOME FOOTBALL COACHES TODAY ARE PLAIN LAZY! They just want to show up and coach on Friday then made because they can't get results.

Then someone hang around the fieldhouse just to say they GRIND. That ain't it either. Find the middle ground

Understand that the Grind is real....with football the grind is year round. That is what makes it so labor intensive. If you are the head coach you are the holder of the folder. I am at a program of 35 kids 9-12, and we have done it for some time and are efficient, but the hours do add up. I am in at work around 8:00 (as AD) and through football M-W do not get home until 7:00 at night. Smaller programs have many kids play both ways which really extends practice. Add this to the 7v7 (which we host), the weight training (mornings and evenings in the summer because so many of our kids work), the college recruitment piece during the school year, film breakdown, putting together practice plans, banquet/meetings, coaches clinics, and many other tasks and you have the recipe for big hours and an angry wife.
It takes its toll on your relationship with your wife, your kids, makes you fat, and makes you tired all fall,,,but as most of you who were competitive, it is that competitiveness and pride in wanting to be great and run a top notch program that keeps you putting in the time.
We have been blessed to have coached some tremendous kids and athletes and have won titles at the highest level. The guys i respect he most are those who have little to work with and put the time in and fight and scratch against better teams to compete. Good luck telling those coaches preparation and extra hours don't matter.
American culture, and especially football coaching culture, worships at the alter of the Dick Vermeil and Bill Belichick and those that put in huge hours and sleep in the office. We bash coaches that are seen as not committed and lack preparation because we believe that they have not put in the time to get their troops ready. High school culture is not a lot different.