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Post by somecoach on Jul 1, 2019 23:59:59 GMT -6
Rather then derailing the "war on football" thread I think this should be a standalone topic.
I hear too many coaches (and adults in general) complaining about "these damn millennial kids" ... when in reality we are already up to Generation Z. This thread is to start a conversation about the differences between the two.
So I decided to type out the following rant to help us understand our Gen-Z players a little better: _________________________
The lines between the generations are a highly debated topic... but a good rule of thumb is Millennial= 1981-1996 Gen Z is 1997-2010
A freshman in highschool for the 2019-2020 school year was born in the year 2005, thus we are well within the Gen Z range.
Being on the (very) latter end of the Millennial spectrum, I have a very unique perspective on the difference between the two generations.
Believe it or not, us Millennials remember a world where there was either no internet, or a very limited one that would not be able to replace social interaction during the childhood years to the extent it does now.
I witnessed first hand the shift of this paradigm in my own childhood.
When I was in elementary school we had the older kids (Late Elementary to Middle Schoolers) on the block who would roam the neighborhood and "run shop" (not at all in a criminal way ... usually, more like decide if we were playing wiffle ball, man hunt, or touch football/ be the team captains/ keep the peace if any altercations broke out). These kids would eventually "age out" as they went on to highschool and started either working part time jobs or playing sports and etc; in which they would be replaced by the next batch of middle schoolers
At some point in our childhoods our parents would see us enjoying a game of street football/wiffleball and sign us up for football/baseball because we ENJOYED playing "sandlot ball".
Even though we all had Playstation 1&2, The original Xbox, and the N64/Gamecube, these systems did not have the online access that we enjoy today, thus even playing video games against an human opponent required the social interaction of getting a friend to come over.
Thus although (some) of us later millenials had the "helicopter" Gen X parents that would take their kids to the doctor if they had a scraped knee, we did in fact enjoy the experience of "playing outside". _______________________________________
Fast forward to my middle school years we had the advent of "online gaming" in which the Xbox 360, PS3 and Nintendo Wii came out. These systems would allow us to play with and/or against another human player without being in the same room, or even the same country!
At this point it was my turn to be "the older kid on the block" but sadly the only one's who were outside "playing ball" were us Millenials... this is due to the fact that in the prime time of playing outside as a young kid, the Gen-Z kids had the option of getting their daily dose of social interaction via the internet.
__________________________________________
Fast forward to when I "aged-out" of playing outside and went on to play highschool football (obviously)... the next crop of kids had no older kids on the block to play with as they were pre-occupied with online gaming. Thus they followed suit.
Much of this didn't occur to me until I started driving, because I honestly can't remember the last time I was driving down a street and having the neighbor hood kids clear out whatever game they were playing at the shout of "car!" to make room for my car; yet in my memories I remember having to yell that out atleast 10x per afternoon
These kids did not have the "older kids" to guide them as they were preoccupied playing online video games.\
Much of these kids also have Gen X/ Early Millenial "Lawn Mower" parents whom, like a lawnmower knock every obstacle down infront of the child, which would stop them from facing ANY adversitry, hence why we see the prevalnce of the "transfer portal" culture. You know the type "Why is my kid not playing position X" ... 'Because they aren't the best X on the team' "That's it I am pulling little Johnny out", as opposed to going home and telling the kid to get better at position Y/ out work the others to become position X. _____________________________________________
... with all this being said, when we are addressing our players going forward, we should keep in the back of our minds that: - They aren't used to the "go play outside" culture - majority of their "sports" only existed in a league setting - We are competing with mobile FREEmium games such as Fortnite in which it is free to play, easy to learn, and allows them instant gratiffication
How do I suggest to combat this?
- Shorter choppier sentences for coaching points because they lose you after the 5th word. - Visual learning as opposed to Verbal learning as they tend to lose you after the 5th word. - Overall give them that sense that they are "Alpha" for participating in football as opposed to their peers who will go on to smoke vapes, become overweight, and play video games all hours of the non-school day. - With the "lawn mower" parenting these kids get, the 4 years they have with your may be the only hurdles they have to jump before the real world. So make sure you develop them as men and prepare them the best you can for their future... because that's what this profession is all about!
...Not to go down the next rabbit hole, but with the advent of the iphone circa 2008, Generation Alpha (2010-2025) should be an interesting case. Many of these kids have been addicted to screens since the age of 7 and due to bad parenting have been arguably "raised by screens". I am terrified to think in my life time there will be a point where majority of the population rather watch "Let's Plays"/E-sports then our beloved game of football. However, I think the novelty of Superbowl Sunday and gambling in our country should help us keep it alive for a while.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading and I hope this possibly cleared some WTF moments up when trying to rationalize what goes through your players head.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 2, 2019 7:41:10 GMT -6
This post makes me want to retire...
Duece
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Post by fantom on Jul 2, 2019 8:26:41 GMT -6
How do I suggest to combat this? - Shorter choppier sentences for coaching points because they lose you after the 5th word. - Visual learning as opposed to Verbal learning as they tend to lose you after the 5th word. - Overall give them that sense that they are "Alpha" for participating in football as opposed to their peers who will go on to smoke vapes, become overweight, and play video games all hours of the non-school day. - With the "lawn mower" parenting these kids get, the 4 years they have with your may be the only hurdles they have to jump before the real world. So make sure you develop them as men and prepare them the best you can for their future... because that's what this profession is all about! Although I don't disagree with you I have to ask: Haven't we been doing those things all along? I recently heard an interview with an author who wrote a book about why college students today are so touchy and intolerant of people with different viewpoints. One point that he made is that these kids have been babied all of their lives, they've never gotten to (And I intentionally used that phrase instead of "Had to") do things for themselves. For example he asked a group of college kids at what age they were first allowed to go to the corner store by themselves. For us older folks that would have been about age 5 or 6. For these kids the ages ranged from 13-16. For a freshman who's still not allowed to go to the 7-11 to pick out his own Slurpee, hard coaching must be a real culture shock.
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Post by carookie on Jul 2, 2019 9:15:06 GMT -6
1) There isnt that much different from kids nowadays then when I played ball over 20 years ago, I am a Xennial. 2) The term "millennial" was evolved into a generic term for 'kids these days' and will remain as such until we find a better one. 3) "The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise...." We all know this quote from Socrates over a couple millennium ago. Kids are kids, thats how they behave. Most coaches don't recognize this because they were probably the tough hard working kids back in their day and didnt associate much with all the coddled slackers; but they were there 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago. Work with it the same as you did back then.
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Post by coachks on Jul 2, 2019 9:42:26 GMT -6
Doesn't a lot of the lawnmower parents / video game culture really contradict itself? Both can't exist at the same time.
Online gaming is insanely difficult to be good. You are not competing against your peers, your not competing against your local kids. It's not at a state level. It's not even national. To be "good" at gaming, you have to be better then billions of people (especially Asian populations). There's no barrier for entry.
So for a parent to live vicariously through their child, it ain't gonna be through online gaming.
I played a ton of pickup sports growing up. Street hockey in particular. I think the implication that it is a "better" way to play then through organized leagues has no backing too it. Honestly, I would have killed to play travel ball and go to camps instead of playing made up rules.
It's also ironic that we have a post about how we can't coach kids hard (They don't get it, haven't experienced failure) the day after the commercial goes viral about the dad berating his kid on the car ride home. It's also in a post talking about online gaming - a platform renowned for how horrific everyone treats each other.
Here's how you coach Gen x, z millenials, alpha or whatever: - Be organized and have a progression. - Give constant feedback - positive when it's good, tell them how go fix it when bad. - Drills should be directly related to team. You should see the drill during a team period. - Praise publicly, admonish privately. - A picture is worth a thousand words, video is probably worth ten thousand. - Talk to them about their friends, family, Hobbies and school. Football is 10% of their day. - Before you jump their sh*t, make sure they understand their job. It's not their fault if you can't teach it. - Give the players ownership whenever possible. The more responsibility they have, the more invested they are. If you can't trust them, you didn't do a good job teaching them.
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Post by rsmith627 on Jul 2, 2019 9:45:47 GMT -6
Thank you for posting this. I am so tired of people (especially the phuckin Boomers) chitting all over millenials. I am just going to stop here, because I could write an entire novel about issues with the Boomer generation, but they get crapped on enough.
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Post by planck on Jul 2, 2019 9:58:53 GMT -6
Kids didn't change, we got older.
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Post by somecoach on Jul 2, 2019 10:11:48 GMT -6
This post makes me want to retire... Duece Please don't They need you now more then ever!
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Post by somecoach on Jul 2, 2019 10:13:06 GMT -6
1) There isnt that much different from kids nowadays then when I played ball over 20 years ago, I am a Xennial. 2) The term "millennial" was evolved into a generic term for 'kids these days' and will remain as such until we find a better one. 3) "The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise...." We all know this quote from Socrates over a couple millennium ago. Kids are kids, thats how they behave. Most coaches don't recognize this because they were probably the tough hard working kids back in their day and didnt associate much with all the coddled slackers; but they were there 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago. Work with it the same as you did back then. Oh I totally agree, the "kids these days" argument goes back to the stone age.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 2, 2019 10:45:53 GMT -6
This post makes me want to retire... Duece Please don't They need you now more then ever! Not sure my liver or my wallet can take it! Duece
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Post by blb on Jul 2, 2019 11:14:16 GMT -6
Kids didn't change, we got older.
There is truth in that. We get older every year, they stay 15-18.
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Post by bignose on Jul 2, 2019 11:43:47 GMT -6
The children now love luxury: they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room.-Socrates (469-399 B.C.)
Ain't nothing new.
BTW, I resent the comment about Boomers....but then again see the above! Lol
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jtim
Freshmen Member
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Post by jtim on Jul 2, 2019 12:05:03 GMT -6
As someone born in 1991 and is a teacher/coach now, I’ve got to say that this post is spot on.
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Post by fantom on Jul 2, 2019 12:14:26 GMT -6
Thank you for posting this. I am so tired of people (especially the phuckin Boomers) chitting all over millenials. I am just going to stop here, because I could write an entire novel about issues with the Boomer generation, but they get crapped on enough. Well, it seems like, not knowing the true definition of the term, some of the people who complain about millenials are millenials.
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Post by wingtol on Jul 2, 2019 12:21:35 GMT -6
I remember getting my first Atari 2600. This chit is making me feel real old.
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Post by coachd5085 on Jul 2, 2019 12:26:35 GMT -6
Kids didn't change, we got older.
There is truth in that. We get older every year, they stay 15-18.
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Post by blb on Jul 2, 2019 12:46:14 GMT -6
Since I was in HS (1969-72) and got my first HC job (1979), not only has the world changed (we had three TV channels, our city had two movie theaters with one screen each, phones were attached to an outlet on the wall with cords on them) and parents-adolescents with it, so has HS Football.
At least in my neck of the woods, there was no year-round weight training (unless done in PE classes), no 7-on-7s, no summer camps, no school-sponsored Soccer or Lacrosse, no travel or fall baseball, and AAU basketball was not as big as it is now.
Football practice started the week before Labor Day (had three practices a day) and school began the day after Labor Day. We had nine regular season games and no playoffs. We played with rubber Voit balls and wore Riddell suspension helmets.
We played for fun-love of the game, for the camaraderie, to beat our neighborhood rivals, and hopefully win a league championship.
Kids actually had time to be kids and coaches had lives outside of football (except some coached two sports or had summer jobs to make ends meet because teachers got paid doo-doo before the rise of unions).
Yes, I know that was back when dinosaurs roamed the earth.
The point is, with all due respect to Socrates, things have changed over the years, and our kids with them.
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Post by carookie on Jul 2, 2019 13:32:57 GMT -6
Since I was in HS (1969-72) and got my first HC job (1979), not only has the world changed (we had three TV channels, our city had two movie theaters with one screen each, phones were attached to an outlet on the wall with cords on them) and parents-adolescents with it, so has HS Football.
At least in my neck of the woods, there was no year-round weight training (unless done in PE classes), no 7-on-7s, no summer camps, no school-sponsored Soccer or Lacrosse, no travel or fall baseball, and AAU basketball was not as big as it is now.
Football practice started the week before Labor Day (had three practices a day) and school began the next day (Tuesday). We had nine regular season games and no playoffs. We played with rubber Voit balls and wore Riddell suspension helmets.
We played for fun-love of the game, for the camaraderie, to beat our neighborhood rivals, and hopefully win a league championship.
Kids actually had time to be kids and coaches had lives outside of football (except many coached two sports and had summer jobs to make ends meet because teachers got paid doo-doo before the rise of unions).
Yes, I know that was back when dinosaurs roamed the earth.
The point is, with all due respect to Socrates, things have changed over the years, and our kids with them.
I don't know if the kids have changed, they seem to behave the same as we would in their shoes. But based on your post it sure seems that we are asking a heck of a lot more from them.
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Post by silkyice on Jul 2, 2019 13:59:43 GMT -6
On the flip side, I am the new coach at a private school that was 0-11 last year. Yes, 0-11. They finished with about 18 kids. They had all kinds of concussions, ACL's, shoulder injuries, etc.
But somehow today on July 2nd, I had 80 7-12 graders in the weight room doing really tough stuff like repping out on heavy ass weight deadlifts. Then going outside in 101 heat index and working their tails off. Some even diving on the dry grass for passes and coming up bleeding and not even saying a word about it.
Oh, and then some stayed afterwards to do individual work.
Oh, and the kids that missed, yeah, the came up on the weekend and already made up.
These are kids that just went through the worst season imaginable. No wins and tons of injuries. These are kids with money and nice cars. They probably have an xbox AND a PS4. They have lake houses. They play other sports also. They could have slept in. They could have gone to the lake or the beach for July 4th week. They could have cruised around in there $50,000 cars and trucks. They could have hung out with their girlfriends by the pool.
But instead they played they got up early and PRACTICED this great game of football in the heat and lifted heavy weights.
Kids these days amaze me.
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Post by blb on Jul 2, 2019 14:11:51 GMT -6
On the flip side, I am the new coach at a private school that was 0-11 last year. Yes, 0-11. They finished with about 18 kids. They had all kinds of concussions, ACL's, shoulder injuries, etc. But somehow today on July 2nd, I had 80 7-12 graders in the weight room doing really tough stuff like repping out on heavy ass weight deadlifts. Then going outside in 101 heat index and working their tails off. Some even diving on the dry grass for passes and coming up bleeding and not even saying a word about it. Oh, and then some stayed afterwards to do individual work. Oh, and the kids that missed, yeah, the came up on the weekend and already made up. These are kids that just went through the worst season imaginable. No wins and tons of injuries. These are kids with money and nice cars. They probably have an xbox AND a PS4. They have lake houses. They play other sports also. They could have slept in. They could have gone to the lake or the beach for July 4th week. They could have cruised around in there $50,000 cars and trucks. They could have hung out with their girlfriends by the pool. But instead they played they got up early and PRACTICED this great game of football in the heat and lifted heavy weights. Kids these days amaze me.
I suspect the kids at your new school recognize they have a legitimate football coach now and are going to do what you ask them to do to be successful.
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Post by larrymoe on Jul 2, 2019 14:13:06 GMT -6
I will be intrigued to see if that level of commitment continues when things don't go to their expectations.
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Post by silkyice on Jul 2, 2019 17:56:52 GMT -6
On the flip side, I am the new coach at a private school that was 0-11 last year. Yes, 0-11. They finished with about 18 kids. They had all kinds of concussions, ACL's, shoulder injuries, etc. But somehow today on July 2nd, I had 80 7-12 graders in the weight room doing really tough stuff like repping out on heavy ass weight deadlifts. Then going outside in 101 heat index and working their tails off. Some even diving on the dry grass for passes and coming up bleeding and not even saying a word about it. Oh, and then some stayed afterwards to do individual work. Oh, and the kids that missed, yeah, the came up on the weekend and already made up. These are kids that just went through the worst season imaginable. No wins and tons of injuries. These are kids with money and nice cars. They probably have an xbox AND a PS4. They have lake houses. They play other sports also. They could have slept in. They could have gone to the lake or the beach for July 4th week. They could have cruised around in there $50,000 cars and trucks. They could have hung out with their girlfriends by the pool. But instead they played they got up early and PRACTICED this great game of football in the heat and lifted heavy weights. Kids these days amaze me.
I suspect the kids at your new school recognize they have a legitimate football coach now and are going to do what you ask them to do to be successful.
Hall of Fame coach before me who retired. Great coach and great guy. Just was the literal perfect bad storm last year. It happens. But my post really wasn’t about me although I could see how it came across that way. My post is about kids these days. Some work, some don’t. Some care, some don’t. Just like always! Coaches in 1000 years will be having these EXACT discussions. For me, kids these days amaze me.
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Post by silkyice on Jul 2, 2019 18:01:45 GMT -6
I will be intrigued to see if that level of commitment continues when things don't go to their expectations. Me too. But I am not sure what their expectations are. LOL On a side note, the year I had the most not come back out or wanting not to work was the year after a state championship. Crazy right?
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Post by 19delta on Jul 2, 2019 20:19:25 GMT -6
I will be intrigued to see if that level of commitment continues when things don't go to their expectations. Me too. But I am not sure what their expectations are. LOL On a side note, the year I had the most not come back out or wanting not to work was the year after a state championship. Crazy right? Coaching bad teams is easy. You just make sure that you play everyone. Coaching on a really good team is hard because most parents are only going to care about the team's success if their son is directly involved in it.
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Post by larrymoe on Jul 2, 2019 21:27:54 GMT -6
I will be intrigued to see if that level of commitment continues when things don't go to their expectations. Me too. But I am not sure what their expectations are. LOL On a side note, the year I had the most not come back out or wanting not to work was the year after a state championship. Crazy right? Not really. Nothing that kids decide to do anymore surprises me.
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Post by agap on Jul 2, 2019 21:38:28 GMT -6
On the flip side, I am the new coach at a private school that was 0-11 last year. Yes, 0-11. They finished with about 18 kids. They had all kinds of concussions, ACL's, shoulder injuries, etc. But somehow today on July 2nd, I had 80 7-12 graders in the weight room doing really tough stuff like repping out on heavy ass weight deadlifts. Then going outside in 101 heat index and working their tails off. Some even diving on the dry grass for passes and coming up bleeding and not even saying a word about it. Oh, and then some stayed afterwards to do individual work. Oh, and the kids that missed, yeah, the came up on the weekend and already made up. These are kids that just went through the worst season imaginable. No wins and tons of injuries. These are kids with money and nice cars. They probably have an xbox AND a PS4. They have lake houses. They play other sports also. They could have slept in. They could have gone to the lake or the beach for July 4th week. They could have cruised around in there $50,000 cars and trucks. They could have hung out with their girlfriends by the pool. But instead they played they got up early and PRACTICED this great game of football in the heat and lifted heavy weights. Kids these days amaze me. It's because of the Wing-T.
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Post by wolverine55 on Jul 2, 2019 21:52:27 GMT -6
Me too. But I am not sure what their expectations are. LOL On a side note, the year I had the most not come back out or wanting not to work was the year after a state championship. Crazy right? Not really. Nothing that kids decide to do anymore surprises me. We had a similar situation. Now, in 2016, we only went 6-3. But, given the preseason expectations, that 6-3 might as well have been a state championship. Most, me included, felt 1-8 or 0-9 was well within the realm of possibility. Well, due to that unexpected success, morale was high in the program and school as a whole, coaching staff received pats on the back all year, etc. In 2017, we then went 0-9, our numbers were lower than they had been the year before, so low in fact we weren't too sure we were going to be able to field a team for the last three weeks of the year and in hindsight, we probably shouldn't have.
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Post by option1 on Jul 3, 2019 5:45:05 GMT -6
Since I was in HS (1969-72) and got my first HC job (1979), not only has the world changed (we had three TV channels, our city had two movie theaters with one screen each, phones were attached to an outlet on the wall with cords on them) and parents-adolescents with it, so has HS Football.
At least in my neck of the woods, there was no year-round weight training (unless done in PE classes), no 7-on-7s, no summer camps, no school-sponsored Soccer or Lacrosse, no travel or fall baseball, and AAU basketball was not as big as it is now.
Football practice started the week before Labor Day (had three practices a day) and school began the next day (Tuesday). We had nine regular season games and no playoffs. We played with rubber Voit balls and wore Riddell suspension helmets.
We played for fun-love of the game, for the camaraderie, to beat our neighborhood rivals, and hopefully win a league championship.
Kids actually had time to be kids and coaches had lives outside of football (except some coached two sports or had summer jobs to make ends meet because teachers got paid doo-doo before the rise of unions).
Yes, I know that was back when dinosaurs roamed the earth.
The point is, with all due respect to Socrates, things have changed over the years, and our kids with them.
I can't like this enough times. Our HC is on the "kids haven't changed..." wagon and we debate it all the time. It is impossible to be blind to the evolution of even Socrates formula. Our sport is and always has been hard while progress is designed to make life easier. Those two things don't go together.
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Post by blb on Jul 3, 2019 8:43:50 GMT -6
I can't like this enough times. Our HC is on the "kids haven't changed..." wagon and we debate it all the time. It is impossible to be blind to the evolution of even Socrates formula. Our sport is and always has been hard while progress is designed to make life easier. Those two things don't go together.
Excellent point, well-said.
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center
Junior Member
Posts: 485
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Post by center on Jul 3, 2019 10:22:02 GMT -6
Not really. Nothing that kids decide to do anymore surprises me. We had a similar situation. Now, in 2016, we only went 6-3. But, given the preseason expectations, that 6-3 might as well have been a state championship. Most, me included, felt 1-8 or 0-9 was well within the realm of possibility. Well, due to that unexpected success, morale was high in the program and school as a whole, coaching staff received pats on the back all year, etc. In 2017, we then went 0-9, our numbers were lower than they had been the year before, so low in fact we weren't too sure we were going to be able to field a team for the last three weeks of the year and in hindsight, we probably shouldn't have. I have seen several examples of this over the last decade. Banner years followed up by lower numbers and interest than ever before. We have a local 2-time state champ program that literally dried up within five years of their last title. I think as a coach you need to expect to start over from scratch every year.
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