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Yelling
Aug 10, 2012 21:11:25 GMT -6
Post by coachrobpsl on Aug 10, 2012 21:11:25 GMT -6
I started wrestling in 3rd grade. I kept going until me senior year in hs and then for a year in the Army. I truly cannot remember ever being yelled at(except for motivation and encouragement)by a wrestling coach but they were the absolute most intense guys I have ever been around. I remember a bunch of yelling by football coaches. Team sports are different then individual sports as far as coaching goes. Individual sports are much more of a reflection on the athlete. One of the reasons why I still think wrestling is the best sport around. No finger pointing or excuses.
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Post by coachrobpsl on Jul 23, 2012 20:04:52 GMT -6
Pop Warner, by rule, cannot start until Aug. 1st.
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Post by coachrobpsl on Jul 19, 2012 21:28:22 GMT -6
Please tell me it does not involve PSU.
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Post by coachrobpsl on Jul 9, 2012 10:43:49 GMT -6
Air dry. Dishwasher for cleaning if the wife will let you. She probably won't though. Dryer is rough on them. Use a blow dryer in a pinch, again if the wife lets you.
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Post by coachrobpsl on Jul 9, 2012 6:16:04 GMT -6
Does anybody think that a top notch program like St Thomas Aquinas(Fl)or De Lasalle could line up and beat these international teams. I would take the consistency of a team over all stars any day.
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Post by coachrobpsl on Jun 18, 2012 16:11:12 GMT -6
Exactly. I was actually stunned. The best public relation move they could of made would of been to say that every coach must attend some sort of clinic on the issue. Not just tackling properly but on concussion awareness. The media and public would of been happy and the end result would of been safer football without causing harm to the game. I think this is what us coaches really want. I do think we are a very solid tackling team with good technique. But I have no control over the idiot on the other side line who encourages his kids to use poor and dangerous technique. This is more of an NFL problem because they DO lead with the head and ARE trying to hurt or injure the opponent. They are also such awesome physical specimens that being hit by an NFL linebacker is like being hit by a small car. I watch NFL games and I am always amazed at the amount of poor tackling technique, especially leading with the head and not wrapping up. How many kids watch the NFL and say "my coach doesn't know what he is talking about it. That's not how the NFL tackles"? I have had players comment on this exact subject before. Hopefully they see what happens when an NFL safety does not wrap, leaves his feet and leads with his head. He does not make the tackle!
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Post by coachrobpsl on Jun 18, 2012 10:55:20 GMT -6
Pop Warner needed to put some effort into educating the guys who still do stuff like that. A mandatory coaches tackling clinic would be a good idea imo. Put out a video and have each association show it to all coaches so everybody is on the same page.
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Post by coachrobpsl on Jun 2, 2012 7:10:49 GMT -6
A good youth coach is a rare commodity. Much rarer than talent. I can tell you from personal experience that a few winning seasons will not turn your program around. Good coaches will. Dave Cisar is in an organization where all of the squads run the same offense. The beauty of this is all the coaches can help each other out and the kids are not starting at the beginning every year. Everybody teaches and learns the same thing. By doing this you can build consistency within the coaching staffs. While I am not a huge fan off this(whole other topic) it certainly has its merits and I can definitely see how it can really help establish a program.
If you have guys on your staff going against what you want they have to go. Whatever you decide as a coach they have to be committed to it. If you are successful they will eventually buy in. I would keep your team together but don't deplete the other team so much that they are not competitive. But if they don't have coaching it won't matter. One of most talented teams we played last year was in our own organization. Sub par coaching. We won 39-0.
You need to hold coaching clinics for your staffs. So many youth coaches do not understand how different the youth game is from high school or higher. They need to be on the same page about fundamentals, practice organization(this cannot be under estimated), scouting etc. The process of building a program takes years(and can be torn down in a season). Train your coaches. This will improve your winning %. Higher winning % brings out more kids which hopefully brings out dads that are competent enough to learn to coach or can step right in.
Sorry if this is kinda off topic. It seems you see what they problem is in your organization. There is no quick fix. One really good team and one really bad team may end up backfiring on you. Good coaching does away with really bad teams. What offense do you run? The reason I ask is because I really do believe what Dave Cisar does within his organization can help you. If you are a system based offense(typically sw, dw , wt) this approach works very well. Even if all the squads don't run it, if you can get a few it will help over the long run.
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Post by coachrobpsl on May 31, 2012 20:15:55 GMT -6
We keep established squads together but they have never been stacked. When parents on a losing squad notice the success of a winning squad they will make the accusation. It does not matter if it is factual or not. The losing team(parents) will start to resent everybody associated with the winning team. If you do stack a team you need to be prepared to take a bunch of heat about it. I am against stacking a team because of what it can do to the players on the other team. The problem that may surface now that you have more kids is that you may not have enough quality coaches to go around. So teams that are not stacked end up looking so because the other team is so poorly coached. A good youth coach can make a team with average talent successful. My problem with drafting is that unless you are having some sort of tryout then you have no idea of what you are getting. Many youth leagues(Pop Warner being the largest example)strictly forbid tryouts. I have seen poorly coached stacked teams lose badly and drafted teams win national championships. It all boils down to coaching.
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Post by coachrobpsl on May 29, 2012 17:55:10 GMT -6
My two most hated. Play the Play! Why? ?? What does "play the play" even mean? I have no problem with "gotta wrap up". Sometimes you can go over that non stop in practice but some kids just want to tackle NFL style(no wrapping-just big hit)in the game.
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Post by coachrobpsl on May 29, 2012 10:48:57 GMT -6
A little off topic but I have a grandmother that is raising one of my players. She is absolutely convinced that this kid is going to the NFL. The kid is playing Pop Warner and is 11 years old!!! His father played a couple of seasons in the NFL on the o-line. Great kid but the grandmother is a handful. It is impossible to explain to her(she is the maternal grandmother) that the chances of this kid making it that far are astronomically low. The kids father tries to set her straight but she just won't listen. Half the parents on our team are already convinced that their kids are D1 material. We try to explain that most of these kids won't even play hs ball and a small % of them will actually be recruited by lesser division schools. I am stunned that we even have to have this conversation at the youth level. In 8 years of coaching youth I think we have had 2 kids(in high school now and doing very well) that have a shot at D1. I think that is probably more than most youth coaches have ever had. And as good as these kids are the chances that these kids are d1 is very small. When we play teams from Miami most of these parents seem to get a better feeling as to where the talent level of their kid actually falls. Usually a big eye opener! My point to all this is that for some reason parents are under the illusion from the kids birth that the kid is blessed. This attitude can ruin kids. A poor youth coach can perpetuate the situation by featuring little Johny Superstar too much, praising him too much and giving preferential treatment. This is very common because so many youth coaches have no clue. I used to think certain kids were special until we started competing on the state and national level. Now that I have seen the top youth players I know the difference at the youth level(I know it is a whole new monster in high school).
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Post by coachrobpsl on May 26, 2012 8:16:45 GMT -6
Pop Warner has a limit of 35. Apparently PW is going to try to have teams max out their rosters or form multiple teams. In years past this was either not a rule or not enforced. I agree with kids not being turned away if you can accommodate them. But is putting 35 kids on a youth team really accommodating? With strictly enforced practices schedules and strictly enforced mpp rules I think having too many kids on a team takes away from the quality of the experience for everybody involved. With that may kids on a roster everybody must play 6 plays not to include any speci al teams plays. Game coaching will be more about strategy on how to get everybody in than about actual x's and o's.
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Post by coachrobpsl on May 23, 2012 15:40:51 GMT -6
"Block somebody" is about the dumbest thing that can possibly come out of a coaches mouth. If you don't know who they should block then how will your players? "Get your head in the game". Like the players are thinking about ice cream or homework while they are being blown up by the guy across from them. And for those of you that don't know, giving any amount of effort more than 100% is impossible.
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Post by coachrobpsl on May 22, 2012 11:00:48 GMT -6
36 is WAY too many. PW has a limit of 35 I believe. I think the best amount is around 25.The biggest problem with that many kids is playing time for each player. Do you have minimum play requirements? The kids will receive less individual attention from the coaches. Due to the restraints involved with that many kids, the players may not progress as quickly as kids on a smaller team. That is not always the case, of course, but when you consider the likely ratio of players to coaches being larger it tends to ring true.
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Post by coachrobpsl on May 17, 2012 10:43:05 GMT -6
One everybody knows but it has been our motto for a long time(not having the greatest talent)"hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard".
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Post by coachrobpsl on May 14, 2012 10:47:29 GMT -6
Belle Glades has had 31(or more, don't know about the last couple of years)players make it to the NFL. Pahokee won 5 state titles in 6 years from 2003 to 2008 with its number 1 alum being Anquan Boldin. Trinity Christian is another Florida small school power house.
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Post by coachrobpsl on May 13, 2012 19:10:24 GMT -6
3 that came to mind immediately in Florida are Belle Glades, Pahokee and American Heritage. The list of NFL and big time college players that have come out of Pahokee and Belle Glade is crazy.
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Post by coachrobpsl on May 12, 2012 9:18:48 GMT -6
I don't coach high school I coach the little guys so you can take what I have to say with a grain of salt. It seems some of you guys are taking this way too seriously and rule your team like a 3rd world nation dictator or a prison warden. Believe me, that is how your players see you. You will fail if you try to force this level on commitment on all kids. Some kids have things in their lives that come before football and there is absolutely nothing you can or should even try to do about it. The audacity to think that CHILDREN have to exclude all the other important things in their lives just to play a game is troubling. I do agree that you should have an off season program and kids that don't make it are going to be behind the ones that do attend. But putting football before family??? Family should be the most important thing in these kids lives. I played football and wrestled in high school. I loved both sports equally but was better at wrestling. I spent much of the summer going to wrestling camps and tournaments. My football coach told me I needed to make a decision between the 2 sports(I was starting at te on a team that was a state semi-finalist the year before) because my level of commitment was not where it should be. He wrongly tried to explain that my conditioning and strength was not going to be where it needed to be. If any of you have ever been to a wrestling practice run by a quality coach you know how absolutely absurd this comment was. Wrestling practice makes football conditioning seem like a stroll on the beach. I lifted with the wrestling team because they lifted harder. Anyway(sorry for the rambling) I wasted no time in explaining to my coach that my level of commitment was exactly where it needed to be and if he was forcing me to chose then he would need to find himself a new te. A few days later he recanted and I nicely told him to shove it up his ... I have never forgiven that coach for doing that to me because I truly loved playing football. I will never be guilty of repeating that mistake.
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Post by coachrobpsl on May 7, 2012 10:42:46 GMT -6
Pop Warner has a mercy rule and I have always said the rule put the feelings of kids before the safety of kids. I believe in having a mercy rule. Without it some coaches would feel the need to beat a bunch of 10 year olds by 60 points. Pop Warner starts its mercy rule at 28 points. From then you are supposed to put in back ups(which is only partially enforced), can only run between the tackles and you have a running clock. The defense is not allowed to blitz. I have never seen a team penalized for blitzing in the mercy rule. Go ahead and have a back up line and a back up rb and tell him he has to run the ball between the tackles against the other teams starting 11(who are all in the box blitzing). We have actually kneeled or punted early on more than one occasion because we were worried about our kids safety. My problem with the mercy rule is that the game, from that point on, has no point. Just end it.
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Post by coachrobpsl on May 1, 2012 17:08:49 GMT -6
I really don't get it if that is the case. It sounds like you have some good competition. If I was the coach that you beat in the finals I would want you to be back more than any other team out there, lol. I bet you would feel the same way. Are there other organizations you can become part of? It would be a shame to not have those kids and coaches not having a season. Sounds like politics to me. Nothing worse in youth sports than parents politics ruining it for the kids. If you have no other options and talking to the commish, and I hate even suggesting this, but media pressure is an option. Do they even have the right to exclude you without reason. We are Pop Warner and we cannot ask teams to just leave. We need very good reasons. Being good is not a reason to kick somebody out.If the rest of our conference was poor we would of never stepped up and gotten better. The one thing many adults are forgetting to teach kids is that life is difficult and you better work your tail off if you want to succeed. Sometimes you get your head handed to you on a silver platter served with a smile. You don't get trophies for performing poorly(except in youth sports). You are rewarded because of hard work, never giving up, discipline, not being selfish etc. Aren't these the values we are trying to teach these kids? Or is it better to to teach them to expect to be rewarded no matter what they do?
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Post by coachrobpsl on May 1, 2012 10:47:02 GMT -6
We were they whipping post of our conference for years. We got better because of tough competition and hard work. You only get better when you go up against somebody who is better than you. Is your association more talented or do you have better coaching or is it both? Kids don't like losing but parents hate it even more. Alot more. I have a sneaky suspicion this is more about parents then kids. A kid will not stop playing football because they went 6-2 and lost a game or 2 by a wide margin. A kid may stop playing if they go 0-8 and get blown out every game. That is usually about coaching and not talent. Sounds like the other associations need to step up there coaching and figure out how to beat you. Sounds like the commissioner needs to think about all of the kids that won't be playing on your teams as well. How many will quit compared to how many won't be able to play if you guys don't have a team?
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Post by coachrobpsl on Apr 30, 2012 11:20:30 GMT -6
We are in full pads 3 days(out of 3 practices) a week until games begin, 2 days in season. That does not mean that we are full contact all the time. We run through plays and scout team at about 65% contact. We want our kids to practice tackling and blocking every time we run a play. We stress that we are hitting and wrapping and not bringing to the ground. Explosive hits are not allowed and punished. We practice proper technique, head placement, grabbing cloth, footwork etc. Our board pretty much tells us that if we have any contact more than patty cakes we will be in pads. Full contact all the time is just dangerous and outdated, imo. We want our kids to be physical. I strongly believe that one of the best ways to bring that out in them is for them to get used to being hit(again, not 100%) and believing in the protective equipment and technique. We very rarely go 100%. Only 2 season ending injuries in the last 7 years(one kid made it back deep into the playoffs).
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Post by coachrobpsl on Apr 30, 2012 10:49:48 GMT -6
I wrestled and played football growing up. I read some stuff about self visualization and remaining calm but razor focused vs. hyped up and overly excited. Once I bought into the focus/visualization thing I improved immensely as a wrestler. This is a hard sell, especially for younger kids, but it really does work. One of things I noticed with getting all hyped up is that you waste energy on getting psyched up that could be used towards whatever sport you are participating. I would prefer our athletes to be focused and relaxed. Pregame warm ups should be upbeat but but not overly, imho. Some teams or kids just don't have that in there personality. You can try to force it on them but it will be artificial. I also agree that as soon as the ball is kicked off all the motivational speeches, war dances, crazy chants, whatever, are completely forgotten. Your players will revert to who they are and play at whatever level of excitement is right for them. We have a very focused but relaxed pregame and bring up the intensity just before kickoff with some form tackling/contact drills. It is always the same before each game. No reason to start stressing the kids before the game even starts. We walk through some smoke, do a little cheer at the beginning and that is it. But don't underestimate the power of pregame chants/rituals to intimidate younger kids. I personally am worried about teams that come out quiet and disciplined.
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Post by coachrobpsl on Apr 26, 2012 19:57:10 GMT -6
We spend more time early in the season on offense. It just takes more to install. On the youth level defense is usually VERY basic. How complex will your offense and defense be? Most teams we face run 5-3 soft man with simple lb blitzing. If you run 6 plays your offensive install can be relatively quick. During the season it probably evens out though due to scouting. We practice tackling technique daily. But I cannot disagree with the guys saying to lean towards defense. Your offense does not have to be very good if your defense shuts everybody down. Ultimately, your ability as a coach and your teams ability(and talent level) to grasp what you are putting out there will dictate what you emphasize. Think about what your team identity is going to be. Do you want to win 7-0 or 35-28? There are many fantastic coaching resources out there that give you a template for practice schedules. Find one that goes along with the identity you expect your team to have and stick with it. The guys who have put those together have made all the mistakes for you already. The fact that you even recognize that you need to script your practices puts you way ahead of most youth coaches. Good luck!
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