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Post by bcoachk on Dec 7, 2017 11:45:19 GMT -6
Looking for some creative ideas and advice here.
Over the past few years at the program I am at we have had a lack of good character kids take an interest in football. There are a lot of good character kids in our school but they play are trending towards playing sports like baseball, soccer, and golf in our school. We have not been that successful as of late, but I believe that the lack of good character kids has something to do with that. Our team consists of mostly 1 parent kids who do not have a ton of support and our parental involvement has not been the greatest. I do not want to lose any kid but the previous coach was a little to easy to keep around a really bad character kid, when most of the staff thought they should be let go.
Have any coaches had experience with really raising expectations and weeding out the real bad character kids. Did that make some of the good character kids who don't want to deal with the BS come back out for football.
I think character development type meeting can possibly help this but just unsure about the actual buy in we will get.
Just look for ideas or advice coaches may have done to attract some of the better character kids in their school to go out for football again?
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Post by Defcord on Dec 7, 2017 12:02:59 GMT -6
I would talk to the kids. Ask them why they don't play? Ask them what would create an interest from them in football?
If I were ever a head coach again, I would make sure to get a great coach and teacher in 9th grade classes so that he could start building a link to the football program. I would pay the guy a ton too because I am teaching 9th graders for the first time ever, and they are the kindergarteners of high school.
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Post by coachcb on Dec 7, 2017 12:06:20 GMT -6
In my experience, the bad character of players on a football team are the result of toxic environment and vice versa. This environment is generally caused by a handful of kids and isn't necessarily indicative of all of the kids. So, the only way to properly handle it is to establish standards demand that the kids meet those standards. Those that don't get an invitation to leave.
We tell the kids that our expectations are simple; show up to practice, show up on time, be coachable, be a team player, and work hard. Anyone that fails to respect those expectations at practice or at a game are removed from the situation and we go forward. We don't run them or the team; we simply ship them to the sideline during practice or bench them during games.And, the kids know that they will not be playing much in a game if we have to sideline them during a practice.
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Post by 54695469 on Dec 7, 2017 13:09:56 GMT -6
Waiting on someone to mention the fact that this all goes back to the need to change the culture in the program. Forego weights, agility, and anything else so that you can post photos on Twitter showing your kids eating breakfast at the elementary school and stuff like that.
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Post by fantom on Dec 7, 2017 13:17:03 GMT -6
Waiting on someone to mention the fact that this all goes back to the need to change the culture in the program. Forego weights, agility, and anything else so that you can post photos on Twitter showing your kids eating breakfast at the elementary school and stuff like that. Hey, how'd you miss the "Fill Me IN" thread? That guy just hung a slider for you. |
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Post by fshamrock on Dec 7, 2017 14:52:48 GMT -6
It's an environment (ha! didn't have to use the word c_l_ure) thing. A locker room full of poor kids can be a bit rough...lots of mf this and f that, and you just hope that's the worst of it, but it most certainly isn't
Good kids who do their homework, take their vitamins and say their prayers every night can sometimes feel a bit out of place.
we once had to take control of the locker room music completely, when one group played hip-hop the trailer park kids went ballistic, when they busted out the charlie daniels we had near riots...so no more music in the locker room, so now they all hated us together as a team
it's a battle
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Post by tippecanoe41 on Dec 8, 2017 0:04:24 GMT -6
The best place to start is talking to these kids and creating a relationship. When I was at the end of my 8th grade year, I had no intentions on playing football. I had tried it before and I wasn't any good at it. However, the head coach and DC saw me one day and talked to me and convinced me that there was no crime in coming out and giving it a good effort and that if I decided I still didn't like it, there was no crime in figuring out that it wasn't for me. They never did anything special to get me to play, but they just talked to me and developed a relationship. Here I am almost twenty years later still coaching, haha.
That was a little different time than now, I will say. I may be wrong, but I honestly feel that a lot of the reason some kids don't go out for football is that in many circles it is seen as barbaric, and they don't want to be involved with that, etc. And there's a lot of people saying constantly that it is just so "HARD" to be on the football team--mostly people who would have no idea because they haven't been there.
I'm not a HC myself, but I feel it is important to develop a set of rules and consequences, and then as hard as it is you gotta be willing to live by them. Even if a kid is a great athlete, if he breaks this or that rule, you gotta be willing to suspend him or tell him to never come back. What I've been trying to tell my current HC is that if you are trying to change the culture, you can't worry so much about winning, as crazy as that seems to hear.
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