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Post by hunhdisciple on Jun 17, 2017 20:58:32 GMT -6
There has always been and will be the threads and discussions about building your specific culture that you want for your team. Those are needed, those are great.
I'm wanting to know the battles we choose to fight against the school atmosphere, the immediate team/program support, and the larger community as a whole. The places where football, or much of anything, is not well thought of or respected.
I'm not asking about how people bring their own ways of doing things, I'm asking how people fight to keep s--tty communities from impacting your program. When your community is poverty stricken, how do you work those major issues?
I've been reading a lot on larger culture issues in history and such things, and it made me start to wonder about these things. How are you all fighting the "can't work, won't work" communities with your culture? How are you handling the irrationally behaving fans with your own actions?
How are you using your positive culture to win over negative cultures at school and at home, as well as the community? What are we doing with our football culture to combat and ultimately attempt to thrive and survive against negative societal cultures?
This might seem kind of off the wall, but I really think there is something to be understood about how we combat negative energy and culture from outside sources that you ultimately may not have any control over.
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Post by Chris Clement on Jun 17, 2017 23:05:16 GMT -6
This is an extremely broad topic. I'd say in certain cases you need to accept compromises that you wouldn't have to worry about in other places.
A recurrent mistake that I seem to see too often is coaches wanting to play Lieutenant Scheisskopf with their players.
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Post by hunhdisciple on Jun 18, 2017 6:41:03 GMT -6
This is an extremely broad topic. I'd say in certain cases you need to accept compromises that you wouldn't have to worry about in other places. A recurrent mistake that I seem to see too often is coaches wanting to play Lieutenant Scheisskopf with their players. I kind of wanted it to be very broad. No one here has the same situation as someone else. I thought it would be beneficial for some people to hear what things did or didn't work, or did or didn't matter. And, it also asks the question if there are any universal things regardless of the situation, that simply aren't worth the time and effort? |
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Post by **** on Jun 18, 2017 10:06:37 GMT -6
Not sure if this is exactly where you're going with this but this is just what I'm thinking...
If the school doesn't have any kind of football tradition don't go there.
If they think they're a basketball or baseball or whatever school don't think that you're going to walk in and turn it into a football town. Football requires more time, for success, than any other sport and if the town and school has never understood that then they never will. Some schools are meant to be chit holes that never win.
If they support football it doesn't matter about money, ethnicity, religion, whatever (you might not win state but you will have success). Every state has towns that just get it. They have hard working people, they understand the positive impacts sports can make on lives, and they have great leaders in the school and community. Other towns have none of this and will never get it. The town was started by dipchits and it has just inbreed for 100s of years and it will never change.
The life blood of every small town is the football program. Some negative you can change. All negative you are phuked. Jesus couldn't save that place.
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Post by coachwoodall on Jun 18, 2017 10:28:31 GMT -6
Culture can be affected, support can come, community will be pretty much set.
The main thing is to set a standard and then ruthlessly work to holding everyone to that standard. It will be a draining experience because you will have to do it over and over every single year. You back slide one year and you have to start all over. Just because you see the corner being turned or you even win really big, you can't ease up.
Also, you won't just have to do this with the kids, but your staff as well.
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Post by Chris Clement on Jun 18, 2017 11:09:24 GMT -6
I don't know if there's any "never" stuff but there's a ranking of what's a priority and what's not. I think where many, probably almost all at some point, get into trouble is failing to properly assess the cost-benefit of a "cultural initiative." I've been guilty of it myself, it's when you start with a lofty ideal but don't consider whether the process by which you're doing it is worth the time being put in, because for most programs man-hours are your most valuable resource. The other danger is getting hung up on principle.
Say your team has a poor collective GPA. You, the minister of team culture, declare that your team will have a studious culture, and you declare that you're going to track every assignment for every kid in every class. You're going to track every kid because you believe that you treat every kid equally and there are no special breaks.
So now you have 100 things a day to do the check on these guys. You either burn out and give up after a few weeks, or you have to work for breadth and not depth, and you become acutely aware that most of your kids are average students and have no time left to help the ones who need it.
So you had a valid goal but your commitment to an impractical principle-that you should treat kids equally rather than fairly-prevented you from getting a ballpark figure on the cost of the project, which would then collapse under its own weight.
Instead, you could have shifted most of your attention to kids who needed it, saved a ton of time, and gotten better results.
Now a lot of this connects to inexperienced coaches who see culture as a means and not an end, something that comes about by having snappy slogans on posters and draconian rules, and that by manufacturing culture you'll win because "culture beats scheme." Culture will beat scheme because culture is the end result of your process.
Fixing culture requires understanding why the culture is broken. You have to ask "why?" Twice.
"Why is our culture broken?"
"Because X part of our program is a shitshow."
"Why is X a shitshow?"
"Because Y."
You need to fix Y to get the culture back in order. It's a QA/QC problem.
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Post by Chris Clement on Jun 18, 2017 12:17:03 GMT -6
Culture can be affected, support can come, community will be pretty much set. The main thing is to set a standard and then ruthlessly work to holding everyone to that standard. It will be a draining experience because you will have to do it over and over every single year. You back slide one year and you have to start all over. Just because you see the corner being turned or you even win really big, you can't ease up. Also, you won't just have to do this with the kids, but your staff as well. To tie in here, it's "ruthlessly enforce a standard," not "enforce a ruthless standard." To stick with the academics metaphor, you set a reasonable, attainable standard, like a 2.0 GPA, and stick to it. You don't set a 3.8 standard and then back off once you realize your team has been decimated because a chunk of your team will never reach that even with all the help in the world. |
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Post by CS on Jun 18, 2017 12:49:58 GMT -6
I don't know if there's any "never" stuff but there's a ranking of what's a priority and what's not. I think where many, probably almost all at some point, get into trouble is failing to properly assess the cost-benefit of a "cultural initiative." I've been guilty of it myself, it's when you start with a lofty ideal but don't consider whether the process by which you're doing it is worth the time being put in, because for most programs man-hours are your most valuable resource. The other danger is getting hung up on principle. Say your team has a poor collective GPA. You, the minister of team culture, declare that your team will have a studious culture, and you declare that you're going to track every assignment for every kid in every class. You're going to track every kid because you believe that you treat every kid equally and there are no special breaks. So now you have 100 things a day to do the check on these guys. You either burn out and give up after a few weeks, or you have to work for breadth and not depth, and you become acutely aware that most of your kids are average students and have no time left to help the ones who need it. So you had a valid goal but your commitment to an impractical principle-that you should treat kids equally rather than fairly-prevented you from getting a ballpark figure on the cost of the project, which would then collapse under its own weight. Instead, you could have shifted most of your attention to kids who needed it, saved a ton of time, and gotten better results. Now a lot of this connects to inexperienced coaches who see culture as a means and not an end, something that comes about by having snappy slogans on posters and draconian rules, and that by manufacturing culture you'll win because "culture beats scheme." Culture will beat scheme because culture is the end result of your process. Fixing culture requires understanding why the culture is broken. You have to ask "why?" Twice. "Why is our culture broken?" "Because X part of our program is a shitshow." "Why is X a shitshow?" "Because Y." You need to fix Y to get the culture back in order. It's a QA/QC problem. Can we type {censored} now? I realize that's not what I was supposed to get out of your post but it is still pretty sweet Edit: I guess it was shitshow that it will take. |
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Post by Chris Clement on Jun 18, 2017 12:53:10 GMT -6
Yeah it's not a particularly intelligent censor function it just searches for specific whole words.
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Post by lions23 on Jun 18, 2017 14:01:56 GMT -6
1. You can't do it alone. Your staff must be all in and you are going to have to invite others and their talents to help you. You set the standards and vision that lead to reinforcing behaviors. There are people who are willing to follow in your school and your community. Find them. Get them involved.
2. You have to have an overarching philosophy about your culture that helps you make decisions. We can some it up in a word "opportunity." Are community is poor poor. They are thirsty for opportunities. There are many problems based on those lack of opportunities. We find ways to give them to kids. We don't do 7 on 7 at home though it would be nice bc our kids have never seen a college campus. We go to the colleges' 7 on 7. A football kid in a poor community is not part of the problem. He wouldn't be there if he was afraid of work. Help him find it. We have study tables bc they need it. As above stated the goals are individual. For many it's just be eligible bc you ll get the opportunity to play but for some it turns into more. It also gives teachers and staff a chance to lend their talents and increase but in. You can play other sports and be the one that makes that easy bc it's about opportunities.
3. It's about relationships. That doesn't mean you have to be soft but if you are trying to turn things around you are going to have to help kids figure out how to work through things. Sometimes they don't know what they don't know. Sometimes bc of community issues they witness they don't believe certain behaviors are a problem. You can't throw everyone aside that doesn't initially get it.
4. You better be competent coach. If you don't have a solid scheme and coaching plan it is going to be a tough go. You have to sell it and demand it. If you start winning some games you'll get some more time and believers. In the words of Daniel Coyle you will need an "ignition" moment. That can be the player that shows everyone else how or the team that does it capitalize on it literally posterize itvand make sure every kid that walks in your locker room knows and can see and can tell that story. Our school was a basketball school with many igniting moments but recently they have forgot about them. They don't celebrate it anymore. We do. Every college football player from our program gets a poster in the underclass locker room. Sell and celebrate opportunity. Make it culturally relevant. Those succes stories are kids neighbors cousins uncles and brothers that is more inspiring than an old coach or young one from somewhere else selling a dream. Those kids are real.
5. Better have great character among your staff. You will e expected to live the values you teach bc the detractors will look for chink in the armor. You don't have to be perfect just do the little things you have been taught and go the extra mile. Be a good citizen teacher and coach. If you mail it in the classroom you will lose confidence. You ll have to build trust through character competence and relationships.
6. Make your program stand out be different or cool yes cool. You are going to compete against mediocrity and every other sport and teenage opportunities.
7. It never gets easy. You can never stop working. If it starts moving the right way people will start giving you access to resources which can make some things easier but the relationships building character and competence is always going to need work.
8. Define your success. Tap into that overarching philosophy. For us we have been only winning games for 4 years but the building years were paramount in establishing our success by providing opportunities. Our ignition moment was a 5-4 team with 10 kids that went on to play college football. Most of them graduated college the same year we win a state championship. After them all the kids wanted those opportunities. Yes many thought we should have won more then too but we saw it as a giant success.
9. Win games. Yes you have to win too. The goal of the game is to win.
10. You can't just Coach Football. You have to be more and stand for more. You will have to be intentional and invested in doing more for the kids. You have to be intentional and invested in teaching your culture.
11. Don't believe anyone who tells you it can't be done. Get them away from your program (unless they are your players) or convert them.
12. Your admin has to buy in and then start pushing the culture through the staff and school. You are going to have to sell yourself and improvement throughout the school. Likely there are other teachers and coaches who want to go on this journey too. Support each other.
This isn't in order as much as it is a list. I've been a part of it at two places that were rock bottom with as many community school or socioeconomic problems as you wouldn't want. This is not easy and is not a quick fix. Happy building.
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Post by lilbuck1103 on Jun 18, 2017 14:07:48 GMT -6
This is why the "who" within your program is so important. The quality of you staff makes attacking cultural changes much more effective because you can lean on one another. Trying to do it by yourself will not work. Have the guts to delegate to those around you with tasks that match their individual capacities. Checking assignments not turned in on Skyward, etc. might be a great job for a young assistant. It's a simple assignment, but promotes ownership.
The other thing is..you don't know what you don't know. I believe you need to educate- both in a positive and negative way of behaviors that are expected of all stakeholders and demonstrated within successful programs. Call out behaviors that don't align from stakeholder groups, and don't make exceptions. Call out and celebrate examples of behaviors (players, parents, community, etc.) that align with the culture. Lay things out very clearly and understandable so that folks know the path. I believe you put pressure on- and then at the end of the day, if it isn't showing the growth you'd expect to see, you know that it might not be a great fit between you and that place. NOT EVERYONE CARES ABOUT WINNING AND COMPETING- Some are happy if their child is participating, having fun and having something to do. Convenient commitment is a real thing from players and parents - I'm committed if there is nothing better for me to do right now.
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Post by groundchuck on Jun 18, 2017 15:06:14 GMT -6
Then there's this scenario....take over....start pushing culture and it gets accepted and pushed. Program starts improving. Then there's change. The change could come in the form of staff turnover, admin turnover, a couple classes in a row where the parents don't buy in, and all of a sudden the hard work to get it going the right way turns into losing battle. Basically the coach/staff builds it up and has the pieces fall into place then the trap door opens and boom the bottom falls out.
Now one could certainly argue that if that happens then the culture of discipline wasn't really built that strong to begin with. That might be true. But doesn't that take some time?
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Post by lilbuck1103 on Jun 18, 2017 15:48:08 GMT -6
Then there's this scenario....take over....start pushing culture and it gets accepted and pushed. Program starts improving. Then there's change. The change could come in the form of staff turnover, admin turnover, a couple classes in a row where the parents don't buy in, and all of a sudden the hard work to get it going the right way turns into losing battle. Basically the coach/staff builds it up and has the pieces fall into place then the trap door opens and boom the bottom falls out. Now one could certainly argue that if that happens then the culture of discipline wasn't really built that strong to begin with. That might be true. But doesn't that take some time? Spot on - the culture takes time (not flash in the pan). You need to establish roots and that takes time. Sometimes you are given the time and sometimes you aren't. I believe as a Coach or really any leader, you need to be very clear in your own mind which hills you are willing to give it up on. Clear mindset in the leader's part is critical. Otherwise, when people start throwing darts at culture, you compromise, and once you bend, everyone knows and it opens a huge door. |
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Post by carookie on Jun 18, 2017 18:44:46 GMT -6
I don't know if there's any "never" stuff but there's a ranking of what's a priority and what's not. I think where many, probably almost all at some point, get into trouble is failing to properly assess the cost-benefit of a "cultural initiative." I've been guilty of it myself, it's when you start with a lofty ideal but don't consider whether the process by which you're doing it is worth the time being put in, because for most programs man-hours are your most valuable resource. The other danger is getting hung up on principle. Say your team has a poor collective GPA. You, the minister of team culture, declare that your team will have a studious culture, and you declare that you're going to track every assignment for every kid in every class. You're going to track every kid because you believe that you treat every kid equally and there are no special breaks. So now you have 100 things a day to do the check on these guys. You either burn out and give up after a few weeks, or you have to work for breadth and not depth, and you become acutely aware that most of your kids are average students and have no time left to help the ones who need it. So you had a valid goal but your commitment to an impractical principle-that you should treat kids equally rather than fairly-prevented you from getting a ballpark figure on the cost of the project, which would then collapse under its own weight. Instead, you could have shifted most of your attention to kids who needed it, saved a ton of time, and gotten better results. Now a lot of this connects to inexperienced coaches who see culture as a means and not an end, something that comes about by having snappy slogans on posters and draconian rules, and that by manufacturing culture you'll win because "culture beats scheme." Culture will beat scheme because culture is the end result of your process. Fixing culture requires understanding why the culture is broken. You have to ask "why?" Twice. "Why is our culture broken?" "Because X part of our program is a shitshow." "Why is X a shitshow?" "Because Y." You need to fix Y to get the culture back in order. It's a QA/QC problem. That bolded portion got me thinking about one of my favorite quotations: "Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics." - Gen. Robert H. Barrow, USMC (Commandant of the Marine Corps) noted in 1980 I was once part of a new staff to a school that the HC wanted to "change the culture". It was a very nice upper middle class private school that got its fair share of talent, but never had an intense football program (no spring ball, limited summer work outs, lots of team bonding but not lots of football development). The HC had numerous and different plans he'd try to implement over my year there, but for the most part he didn't have the logistical understanding or support to implement them. Whatever your goals are to change a culture make sure you understand all the steps to accomplish that goal, and have the people and authority to get it done. |
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Post by groundchuck on Jun 18, 2017 20:00:40 GMT -6
Then there's this scenario....take over....start pushing culture and it gets accepted and pushed. Program starts improving. Then there's change. The change could come in the form of staff turnover, admin turnover, a couple classes in a row where the parents don't buy in, and all of a sudden the hard work to get it going the right way turns into losing battle. Basically the coach/staff builds it up and has the pieces fall into place then the trap door opens and boom the bottom falls out. Now one could certainly argue that if that happens then the culture of discipline wasn't really built that strong to begin with. That might be true. But doesn't that take some time? Spot on - the culture takes time (not flash in the pan). You need to establish roots and that takes time. Sometimes you are given the time and sometimes you aren't. I believe as a Coach or really any leader, you need to be very clear in your own mind which hills you are willing to give it up on. Clear mindset in the leader's part is critical. Otherwise, when people start throwing darts at culture, you compromise, and once you bend, everyone knows and it opens a huge door. The part of compromising is spot on. Once people know you'll compromise certain things it can become Katie bar the door. I think having some things you will negotiate on is ok. But you can't compromise your non-negotiables. |
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Post by lilbuck1103 on Jun 18, 2017 20:46:18 GMT -6
I think it was Nick Saban who said in a speech once when telling a story about a player's reaction to a situation. For what it would cost you, is it worth being right???
Sometimes, on things that aren't our non-negotiables, it's a good thing to compromise as you said. Sometimes being RIGHT over something that really doesn't matter is what gets you in trouble later on down the road. Pick your battles.
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Post by brophy on Jun 19, 2017 7:13:16 GMT -6
the school atmosphere, the immediate team/program support, and the larger community as a whole How are you all fighting the "can't work, won't work" communities with your culture? How are you handling the irrationally behaving fans with your own actions? Just like it is with changing players, with the community, Engagement is key. Talk and share the vision of the program with other teachers. What's in it for them? Most often the best way to get people thinking positively of you is to provide them a positive impression. What you're doing will have a benefit for their self interest. If kids are not behaving in their class, have that teacher contact you so you can put a stop to it. Let all teachers know that they shouldn't have any problems with football kids, that you hold players to higher standards of leadership. Offer to assist with discipline issues. Work with the Administration as well, so they can scratch your back with academic alerts so you can get kids in remediation/study hall periods/ tutors. With the community at-large it requires more politics. Fundraisers is where this is done most often. Use your volunteer events as team bonding exercises. The VFW is having a Jambalaya Cookoff for donations? Great, get your coaches and kids out there helping to set it all up. Get the faces of your program out in the community. Summer Golf Classic in town? Volunteer your kids to do 20 hours of free labor with each kid doing 3 hour shifts. Get people seeing your program's impact as being bigger than just football. In all things, ENGAGE THE PARENTS. Sometimes just one phone call will make the difference. Send out email/newsletter updates of good things going on in the program year long. Provide attendance alerts of who is attending off-season sessions and who isn't. When the fall hits, have a night to watch the game film with parents. Use it as an opportunity to showcase kids who aren't getting pub. Highlight second teamers that got to play and the impact they made. When done in front of a lot of parents, it fosters the bonding of each kid making a difference and wanting to contribute. The other good thing is when you win over the parents in a group like this, the groupthink/hivemind of agreement dissuades those lone wolves from piping up bitching about why this play was called and such. The more parents + community involved, the more fundraising money you're going to bring in. The more money you can bring in, the more uniform/camp/swag you can afford to be more attractive to future players. If it isn't evident by now, you need your entire Program Staff to be engaged as well. If you think the Head Coach is supposed to do everything, you've already lost |
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Post by 19delta on Jun 19, 2017 15:18:34 GMT -6
Not sure if this is exactly where you're going with this but this is just what I'm thinking... If the school doesn't have any kind of football tradition don't go there. If they think they're a basketball or baseball or whatever school don't think that you're going to walk in and turn it into a football town. Football requires more time, for success, than any other sport and if the town and school has never understood that then they never will. Some schools are meant to be chit holes that never win. If they support football it doesn't matter about money, ethnicity, religion, whatever (you might not win state but you will have success). Every state has towns that just get it. They have hard working people, they understand the positive impacts sports can make on lives, and they have great leaders in the school and community. Other towns have none of this and will never get it. The town was started by dipchits and it has just inbreed for 100s of years and it will never change. The life blood of every small town is the football program. Some negative you can change. All negative you are phuked. Jesus couldn't save that place. Reminds me of an old saying...there are more good football coaches than there are schools that play football. There are lots of guys out there toiling away at places where they get no support and have to coach their butts off to end up 2-7. Long story short, there are simply some places that don't deserve to have a good football coach. |
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