How often does this happen to you?

My primary coaching consists of coaching summer travel football in Canada. We are usually a weaker team talent wise compared to some of the other teams we face which means we typically finish with an even record and may pull out the odd playoff win here or there.

I've been repeatedly amazed that we have p!ss poor practice attendance and effort after a big game where we either won or came very close against a team we likely should have been blown out against. It never fails.

Two weeks ago we were down 14-0 at half and came back to win 23-14 in very dominate fashion playing our best football to that point and the next practice we had 30 of 54 kids show up. I should no longer be stunned but it never fails to exasperate me.

Sounds like a really good topic for a PhD dissertation to me. Anyone working towards one? :-)

Its just the law of averages and mean regression. You stated that your first four practices were "very good" which I interpret to mean better than average (average being what you would normally expect); if this is the case, wouldn't it make sense that you would eventually have to have a practice that is bad (less than what you would expect)?

Otherwise your expectations would have been higher coming into camp, and those "very good" practices would have just been practices that were what you expected, and you most likely wouldn't have noticed.

I used to coach with a guy who felt that you couldn't compliment kids too much for good practices because they would then have bad practices. Moreover he felt that if he was verbally abusive after bad practices it would benefit the team and get them back on track; he used anecdotal evidence similar to your situation to support his claim.

I told him I disagreed but he stuck to his guns; eventually I created a demonstation to show him how I felt he was wrong. I took out a six sided dice, and told him I wanted this dice to consistently roll a higher number (the higher the number the better). Every time I rolled a 1 or 2 I yelled at it for being bad, if I rolled a 5 or 6 I complimented it for being high. Obviously, the times I rolled low tended to mean regress and be higher the following roll; conversely that number went down following a high roll. Did that indicate my yelling or complimenting impacted the next roll? No of course not.

So what was the point of that long winded recounting? That we have a good grasp of what our team will be, sometimes they are a little better than that, sometimes a little worse. As coaches, we try to coach them up to be the best they can be (I am in no way writing not to stop driving and coaching them); but in the end you have an expectation of where they should be (that 3 or 4 roll- and don't say you expect them to be a 6 every time because it is a relative statement, wherever you expect them to be is 3 or 4). Sometimes they will do better, sometimes worse. If they had a lot of "very good" practices then either your expectations were too low or they will mean regress.

Coach, actually I said it was a total $hit show, not a bad practice. There is a difference (to me anyway). 

As for the dice demo? Stay off the drugs son. Sorry man, but that's just weird.

Its never as good as it seems, its never as bad as it seems, never get too high, never get too low. Just keep chopping wood.

It's about creating a mentality of "A Monday is a Monday", etc.... Every day you go chop wood. I say it a million times, if you give me 3 hours to chop a tree, I'll spend 2 hours sharpening my axe.

Today we are here to do work. Yesterday doesn't matter, I'm not worried about saving for tomorrow.

You might have a 'starting line'. When the kids cross XXXXX, they have their chin straps on, cleas laced, shoulder pads tight, gloves on, etc..... and they are going to work.

Yeah, I'm not knocking the 'law of averages. ....' response's, but Hades I'm not trying to coach a team to be average. Set the bar high and demand that the kid reach for the bar. There's nothing wrong with expectin perfection.

This is probably not true but it seems like it happens a lot where I thought we had a great week of practice and then we struggled in the game, and vice versa where I though we were walking into an ass kicking and we played really well.

Actually no. Just trying not to take myself & the situation too seriously. It is June after all.

I think that there's something to be said about bad practices being caused somewhat by a bad day by one or more coach. Maybe you've put in something new and they didn't really understand it even though they thought that they clearly did when it was discussed. Maybe they just had a bad day at work or at home. Of course, if that happens too often maybe coaching isn't for that guy. 

Over the years I've found that, although random bad days can pop up, some are predictable. Any change in schedule risks a bad practice. The first day back to school has almost always been tough. A half-day of school or a day off can throw things off. A sudden, drastic change of weather seems to mess things up. Something that removes a few key players-injuries, disciplinary problems, a field trip- puts the whole team off kilter. 

These problems can be magnified with off-season practices. You've thrown a lot of things at them, it's hot, some kids may be gone for a combine, church camp, whatever plus they have other things on their mind. 

And they're kids. Who knows what the hell a 16 year old is thinking from day to day. 

"Look, men, I understand we're going to have bad practices. But it's not going to be today.

"We're going to get two good hours in, even if it takes us six!"

as I fill a response with typos.....  sorry, long day at the office

I would say all of the Earnest movies sucked, but that is me. I had to apologize to my date for taking her to such a bad movie. Now, the movie we went to the next week was much better, Back to School.

1. 10 degrees can change practice big time. 2. Work load can influence practice. 3. Bored with it. 4. Energy of leaders can greatly change practice. IMHO

I coached with a basketball coach that was very successful and brutal to his players. He knew himself better than anyone. He had built in clap sessions to calm himself down and lift practice energy up. If they had a bad practice, he was unreal on them. I would ask how was practice and he would always say it will be good tomorrow. He would make them believe they had a great practice the next day no matter what. They didn't have many bad ones but he went about things very different.

I'm not as in your face and want to tell them to shut up as soon as someone starts clapping. I expect a bad practice by day 7. I only get concerned if it's not better after a bad one.

Several years ago we had a great practice and was going to end practice with five plays on two without jumping. It took us 1:30. We played a top ten team 2 days later and changed the count every play and they jumped 15x and us none. Who knows! We won also.

In my humble opinion, you should take Friday off instead of wednesday. One, to keep up the flow and momentum. Also because of the fact that kids are thinking about the beach and bikinis on Friday while coaches are thinking about well.... the beach and bikinis