|
|
Post by ballcoach13 on Jan 4, 2017 12:58:37 GMT -6
What are the best ways to get kids out to play football- things that you have actually done that have worked?
|
|
|
|
Post by 3rdandlong on Jan 4, 2017 13:27:54 GMT -6
Win. If you build it, the will come
|
|
|
|
Post by blackknight on Jan 5, 2017 11:16:07 GMT -6
Advertise. Put cloth on the current players that they will wear in the hallways. Announcements as often as possible in the bulletin.
|
|
|
|
Post by tanavea on Jan 11, 2017 12:26:41 GMT -6
As much as I want to believe the "win" method. That doesn't work at all at our school. We've built it, but they still don't come. We have the highest winning percentage in the state, and won the state title the past two years. And yet we still had a 140 lbs Center, tiny lineman, had a starting Strong Safety quit to focus on lacrosse. Best players transfer to other schools to play other sports. I'm in the same boat. Participation numbers are the lowest they've ever been in our program.
|
|
|
|
Post by virgilromer on Jan 11, 2017 16:38:56 GMT -6
We held 7 on 7/2-hand touch football games on Saturday mornings throughout the offseason. We didn't really coach and basically let the kids run the show. Current players would get other kids to come out just to have fun and in the end we ended up retaining about five of those newcomers, which was a big deal considering we had 45 in our entire program (Var/JV).
|
|
|
|
Post by realdawg on Jan 11, 2017 18:22:31 GMT -6
Gotta find a way to make it fun. I don't have the answer. I'm a DC by trade. I tend to be the grumpy old troll on our staff. But if you want them to come they better be having fun.
|
|
|
|
Post by brophy on Jan 12, 2017 8:54:47 GMT -6
cast a wide net. - Now is the time to have the head coach or assistants visit your feeder Phys Ed programs (they still have those, right?). Lagniappe if you can get that Phys Ed teacher to call a 10-minute after school meeting with their kids to tell them about your program (primarily for incoming freshmen to participate in your spring after-school lifting program).
- Wear your football swag and attend School Wrestling, Basketball games. Make your brand known/visible
- Meet with your players and give them off-season ownership. Have your leaders draft teams of all potential players (off-season conditioning participants) starting with the freshmen and work their way to Juniors. Your leaders will be accountable for the attendance / participation of the group they draft. Best group gets a big prize this summer.
- Work your hallways to see about getting that kid that might want to play or could contribute but has never gone out for football. Sell the brotherhood
- Off-season program should be fun and inclusive. Be organized and use a periodization program with a competition every month. Build the group
- Compliment your off-season participation (and competitions) with a cheap team outing/get together. Could be bowling, could be pizza night, could be dodge ball/basketball/Madden tournament at the school....get them together slapdicking and having fun.
- Push all your known kids to participate in the school's track program even if they aren't "Track Athletes". Kids play sports to be with their group of friends, infect other teams with exposure to your football kids.
- oh, and if the HEAD coach has to do all this stuff, you're doing it wrong....
|
|
|
|
Post by PSS on Jan 12, 2017 22:08:55 GMT -6
cast a wide net. - Now is the time to have the head coach or assistants visit your feeder Phys Ed programs (they still have those, right?). Lagniappe if you can get that Phys Ed teacher to call a 10-minute after school meeting with their kids to tell them about your program (primarily for incoming freshmen to participate in your spring after-school lifting program).
- Wear your football swag and attend School Wrestling, Basketball games. Make your brand known/visible
- Meet with your players and give them off-season ownership. Have your leaders draft teams of all potential players (off-season conditioning participants) starting with the freshmen and work their way to Juniors. Your leaders will be accountable for the attendance / participation of the group they draft. Best group gets a big prize this summer.
- Work your hallways to see about getting that kid that might want to play or could contribute but has never gone out for football. Sell the brotherhood
- Off-season program should be fun and inclusive. Be organized and use a periodization program with a competition every month. Build the group
- Compliment your off-season participation (and competitions) with a cheap team outing/get together. Could be bowling, could be pizza night, could be dodge ball/basketball/Madden tournament at the school....get them together slapdicking and having fun.
- Push all your known kids to participate in the school's track program even if they aren't "Track Athletes". Kids play sports to be with their group of friends, infect other teams with exposure to your football kids.
- oh, and if the HEAD coach has to do all this stuff, you're doing it wrong....
Brophy hit the nail on the head. That's how we built our program over the last 2 1/2 years. Can't stress how important it is to work with the JH programs. We have 2 separate periods, one for 7th and one for 8th. Different varsity coaches work with them during the season and in the offseason. Having an inclusive off-season is also important. Right now every sport except basketball (in-season) are working together. Baseball, off-season football / track, and straight track are in the same period working together. After school we work speed development and form running. By doing this we have had success at getting more kids to play multiple sports. Also, the biggest sport that is pushed is track. When I took it over 2 1/2 years ago there were 25 kids running track. Last year I had 60. This year I will have over 80. The only straight track kids I have are distance runners, the rest are football players. We gained at least 15 in football this year from the track team last year. Everyone of our football coaches that don't coach basketball will go to the basketball games. It helps to be visible and show support. Eventually, you'll win kids over. |
|
lmorris
Sophomore Member
Posts: 195
|
Post by lmorris on Jan 13, 2017 13:07:15 GMT -6
lol, I guess I am in the minority here. I harass kids until they come out and give me a shot. A typical conversation:
Coach: you playing football next year?
Kid: No
Coach: Why not?
Kid: I don't know
Coach: Are you afraid of contact?
Kid: No
Coach: Are you afraid of the heat?
Kid: No
Coach: Are you afraid of work?
Kid: No
Coach: And you don't want to play football why?
Kid: I don't know, I just don't like it.
Coach: How do you know? You've never played.
Kid: I played in peewee's and didn't like it
Coach: So you never really played football....Let me guess, you all lined up, the coach called a play, and you all learned it together?
Kid: Yup
Coach: So you have never had someone work with you to help you become as good as you can be?
Kid: Nope
Coach: So do you have a good reason to not play football?
Kid: Not really I don't guess
Coach: Do me a favor.....give me a shot, all I need is one, come give me a day, a week, a month.....if you don't like it come shake my hand, tell me this isn't for you and I will never ask you again. But I honestly wouldn't be talking to you right now, if I didn't think you would really enjoy it and could be extremely successful at it.
Kid: .....
I can not tell you how many times I have had that exact almost word for word conversation with a kid.
I have done this one as well both times I took over a new program....find where the kid lives, stop and talk to them. Hard for a kid to say no, when momma and daddy are right there, with the coach pitching it to you telling you that he believes in you and that you can be successful. You just gained two new boosters from parents who now know you care about your program and their son, as well as a new athlete on the roster.
I may not do many things well, but I can recruit the heck out of my own hallways. Both programs I took over had between 20-30 kids, I have only had one year in 10 with less than 50...48
|
|
|
|
Post by groundchuck on Jan 13, 2017 14:39:20 GMT -6
1. Be real. If you are authentically enthusiastic about your program and your assistants are too you will get some kids into your program.
2. Win. Speaks for itself.
3. Players sell the program.
4. Cohesive philosophy with other sports. Everyone should be encouraging kids to play 2-3 sports.
5. Good junior high/middle school program. I don't care what their winning percentage is. But I do care what percentage of kids come back out the following year. Keep the numbers up down there.
6. Supportive parents/community/demographics. There are places that because of factors you cannot control kids don't play sports. Not just football.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 13, 2017 18:09:30 GMT -6
Win. If you build it, the will come I wish this were true at our school. I'm the guy that recently posed the question about how most of the kids hate our HC and what do I do about it. Before he showed up we didn't win a league game in jv or Varsity and we didn't even sniff the playoffs. Since he arrived we've been winning at both the jv and Varsity level and going deeper into the playoffs each year. About an hour ago I was at the school dropping off some new equipment and I saw four of our varsity players sitting around scratching their balls. After talking to them for a few minutes I asked how workouts are going. There was a pregnant pause and then they said, "Coach, we've haven't been going because we're not playing next year." When I asked why they said they don't like the HC. I said "What is it with you guys? You finally get a coach that knows the game, knows how to make you better and knows how to win but you're pissing and moaning because he's not your buddy? He's not being paid to be your friend he's being paid to make you winners and doing a damn good job of it. What do you want him to do??" They said, "We want him to cool out, not be so intense." Incredibly frustrating. |
|
|
|
Post by freezeoption on Jan 13, 2017 18:21:16 GMT -6
yes, the only thing its not their life that will get totally screwed up if they lose,
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2017 15:54:22 GMT -6
cast a wide net. - Now is the time to have the head coach or assistants visit your feeder Phys Ed programs (they still have those, right?). Lagniappe if you can get that Phys Ed teacher to call a 10-minute after school meeting with their kids to tell them about your program (primarily for incoming freshmen to participate in your spring after-school lifting program).
- Wear your football swag and attend School Wrestling, Basketball games. Make your brand known/visible
- Meet with your players and give them off-season ownership. Have your leaders draft teams of all potential players (off-season conditioning participants) starting with the freshmen and work their way to Juniors. Your leaders will be accountable for the attendance / participation of the group they draft. Best group gets a big prize this summer.
- Work your hallways to see about getting that kid that might want to play or could contribute but has never gone out for football. Sell the brotherhood
- Off-season program should be fun and inclusive. Be organized and use a periodization program with a competition every month. Build the group
- Compliment your off-season participation (and competitions) with a cheap team outing/get together. Could be bowling, could be pizza night, could be dodge ball/basketball/Madden tournament at the school....get them together slapdicking and having fun.
- Push all your known kids to participate in the school's track program even if they aren't "Track Athletes". Kids play sports to be with their group of friends, infect other teams with exposure to your football kids.
- oh, and if the HEAD coach has to do all this stuff, you're doing it wrong....
I love all of this. I'd also add that anyone who wants to get numbers up should be using social media heavily now. YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc. Get your brand out there with things that people, especially kids, can share with pride or excitement. Sell all the positive new changes you're making, share the records kids are breaking in the weight room, show them that things are going well and the people who are coming out are having fun and benefiting. One team I know had a video production guy come in to make a short "documentary" on the team during spring practice, which was really a 15 minute infomercial, that they put on YouTube. They got the coaches on camera talking about their vision, showed clips of practice, clips of kids busting it in the weight room, and, most importantly, had the players on camera talking about how awesome the new coaches were and how great it was to play football. I also love virgilromer's idea about 2 hand touch games on Saturday. Just getting kids having fun with footballs in their hands and bonding with their teammates is huge. |
|
CoachLickert
Freshmen Member
www.completeheadcoach.com
Posts: 42 
|
Post by CoachLickert on Jan 16, 2017 6:56:58 GMT -6
What are the best ways to get kids out to play football- things that you have actually done that have worked? Kids want to be with their friends. Give the kids you already have in the program a great experience and they will recruit their buddies to join. The kids in your program are your best recruiters. It is your job to create an environment that allows for a great experience. Have "bring a friend day" in the weight room and give a reward for any kid that brings a friend. Some other things on your end is to find out what kids used to play football and quit playing. Write them a letter telling them you heard how good they were and you want them to join the team. Hand written letters work best. Finally talk to every kid in the hallways. |
|
|
|
Post by coachjm on Jan 16, 2017 7:42:33 GMT -6
Historically our programs have always grown in numbers and there are several reasons I believe have ensured this that have nothing to do with results.
- Humans are pack animals, we are all looking for a group and there is always a leader of the pack, get the leaders of the pack and others will follow.
- Focus on making football fun, players can have independence and freedom to do things that may not be your preference (assuming they are ethical) don't try to control their lives or experiences. When you take authority and create high expectations ensure it is something that matters.... For example, you can dictate what is on the weight room music (assuming clean) or how perfect warm-ups look but in my mind those are things the kids can choose however, if execution of our blocking fundamentals isn't adequate we have zero tolerence. Some call this picking your battles I veiw it more as points of emphasis.
-Get kids on the field, if kids aren't having meaningful playing time they are not likely to have fun.
-Change up the routine while keeping things the same, it is amazing the little changes you can make that kids believe is new and engaging and it is simply a small twist to what you were already doing...
-Most importantly, invest in their lives, care about them more as people then as football players, attend their other events, support them when they are going through rough periods, stay connected after they leave. If you truly care about them as people more then you do as a Football player your connection makes the experience and time more meaningful for both of you and the commitment is greater for both of you.
|
|
|
|
Post by PSS on Jan 16, 2017 8:50:35 GMT -6
I can't say how important it is to play everyone on your sub-varsity teams. If you want them to come back to you next year you better find someway to get them on the field. You don't know if a 13 year old will be a stud player by the time he's a junior or senior. Even those freshmen grow up sometimes and become great players for you.
|
|
