|
Post by blb on Apr 24, 2019 7:32:04 GMT -6
In high school one bad class can do a lot of damage to a program, no matter what has been built prior to it.
Especially at a small school.
If you stay long enough in one place, sooner or later you may have to rebuild your own program.
|
|
|
Post by coachcb on Apr 24, 2019 7:59:46 GMT -6
Then you've never taken over a program that hadn't won a game in five years before you got there. We have taken over over a program that won only 1 game in 5 years, and I agree that you need to dig much deeper than traditional on-field coaching duties to elicit change. If you're insinuating that " just coach your kids" also entails developing community relationships, getting families involved, marketing your program and creating a Program vision/identity, developing/teaching leadership throughout the school year, fundraising, developing a strength & conditioning program, etc., then I guess this is just a semantics issue. We were fortunate to experience significant success, but it would not have been possible without the strong administrative support we received. Our administration shares our vision for the Program and they are philosophically aligned with our coaching staff. In my first HC gig, I took over a program that was struggling. The staff was solid, we coached the crap out of the kids, established firm discipline policies, got the program more organized (year round) and did everything "good coaches do". We did everything we could to "sell our product" to the community and get buy-in from them and the school. We took a long look at what we could control and influence and focused on changing those things for the better. At the end of the day, we didn't come close to changing the "culture" at the school, even after we started winning games and playing competitively against tougher teams. My second year there, we started off August camp with 25 kids (great numbers for 8-man football and, by the end of the season, we were down to 13 bodies. We kicked a few kids off of the team for missing practice but many of them just quit when they were benched for either skipping a practice, being late or other issues. We weren't screamers/yellers that ran kids off of the team either; the kids knew there were rules in place and there were consequences for violating them. The things that we couldn't influence were killing the program. The school was very successful in basketball but there was a total lack of discipline within that program and it spilled over into the rest of the sports. A practice attendance policy wasn't enforced, the kids came and went as they pleased and it was a joke. They happened to be loaded with talent and won solely on that basis. So, the thought process of the kids was simple: "We win games in basketball and we don't have to practice. We lose games in football but coach makes us come to practice.. We'll quit football".,
|
|