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Post by wolverine55 on Jun 11, 2015 6:43:07 GMT -6
Iowa has districts that are determined by the state and re-drawn every two years, although based on my school's location, there is very little change with ours. We are grouped into 7 team districts with teams in our same classification. Then, the state schedules the three non-district games as well, but each school provides the state a list of five teams they would prefer to play as those non-district games.
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Post by wolverine55 on Jun 10, 2015 13:23:40 GMT -6
Actually...no I haven't and haven't even really thought about it. As stated earlier, I'm guessing I'm in the minority here, but I guess I don't really care how much or how little our opponents are doing.
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Post by wolverine55 on Jun 10, 2015 12:26:07 GMT -6
I have a question regarding the "arms race" that has been brought up on here: how many of you actually know what your opponents do in the spring and summer time. I'm not talking about what you suspect or hear, but actually know they do. Maybe I'm in the minority--and I'm not a HC--but I honestly have no idea what or how much of anything our district opponents do the offseason.
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Post by wolverine55 on Jun 4, 2015 14:41:09 GMT -6
"Tempo"is actually a rather generic word that just means the pace something is meant to be played at. If you're huddling and intentionally running the play clock down before snapping the ball, you're still "dictating tempo"!
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Post by wolverine55 on May 27, 2015 7:32:00 GMT -6
We have a new HC this year, but in the past the HC gave his talk and then asked if the assistants had anything to add. Almost always, anything I would have wanted to say had already been said by the time it got to me, so I passed. If I have something for my position group specifically, I normally just have them stay a couple extra minutes as it normally isn't something the whole team needs to hear.
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Post by wolverine55 on May 27, 2015 7:30:09 GMT -6
Especially if you have spring football, I think you should take two weeks off at least. Our last day of school is the first, we don't have spring ball, and we're still waiting until the 15th to start. It probably would have been the 8th, but our HC is out of town that week due to doctor appointments for his son.
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Post by wolverine55 on May 17, 2015 11:02:46 GMT -6
To be fair to the others who did do spring. Let me ask you a question, same kid decides to skip August practice and then decides to play the week of the first game? Does he play? It is different, but if I think that spring football is important and that I want it to be important to our team and that it makes a difference in how we perform on the field, than there will be consequences in missing. I can make spring football and summer workouts mandatory, there are no restrictions on me by state association. So I make it madatory. But I also am, I think, reasonable. If someone has a school conflict, they are excused. Had a parent pull his kid out a few days because of grades and exams coming up. Excused. Had a parent take a kid for a trip. Excused after he made up running. Kid misses spring. Not excused. But not off the team. Penalty is a one game suspension. And yes, I am willing to lose a kid over this rule. If a kid misses spring and isn't willing to miss one game, then he really doesn't want to play. Football is not for everybody. I am going to have standards and expectations or the team isn't going to perform well. Rather have 20 that are dedicated than 30 that aren't. But again, I don't think I am being unreasonable or a hard a$$ here. Now if you don't think spring is important or y'all don't do spring, then you really don't have a place in this discussion. This is about a coach who does spring and thinks it is important. If it isn't important, then why even do it?. I will say that I absolutely do not see the need for spring football at the high school level. However, I think the questions raised in this thread are still legitimate to almost all involved because the same issues could, and probably do, arise within our summer programs. As I just posted, in Iowa baseball is a summer sport and of course the other sports are all having their offseason programs as well.
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Post by wolverine55 on May 17, 2015 10:50:53 GMT -6
I see this type of post several times a year it seems, so let me ask a question...what if the guy that comes out in the fall is just simply better than your "committed" player who has been there for the spring stuff? I see twitter feeds all the time from coaches going on about how "This Big 10 or SEC coach only recruits multi sport athletes!!", and then we see guys turn around and demand our players only can be "committed" to football. Just seems a little wrong to me. How about this, be happy with what you get in the spring, and when the fall comes around play your best. I realize that all things being equal, the guy who has been there all year round will be your starter, but I just see this as another barrier to kids playing football. I'm not telling kids just to play football or be just committed to football. All the spring sports are done here. I have told the guys to play other sports...in fact, they get points for playing other sports. What I don't want to create is the kid who bust his tale in spring, who has a true love for the sport feel like he is doing the extra work and then a good athlete sits out in spring because he wants to go to the beach more during spring who says he "needs a break" from sports comes back in first day of August and competes for the starting job...I feel like it's more than getting my best team out there...I feel like it's a life lesson we are able to teach as far as putting in the work. After my last post, I remembered a thread from years ago that pointed out because of the weather spring sports season in Florida starts earlier than most of us posters would be accustomed to and therefore done earlier as well. I will point out that if we're talking about true multi-sport athletes, the "need a break" from sports concern you seem to be blowing off may be legitimate. In Iowa, varsity baseball is a summer sport, so we have some many three sport athletes and even a couple four sport athletes that I worry about in this regard.
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Post by wolverine55 on May 16, 2015 13:11:32 GMT -6
There's no way I wouldn't let kids come out if the reason they aren't available for spring football or some summer workouts is other sports. I like the fact that we have many multi-sport athletes in our program right now. Now, if a kid isn't involved in any other sports and still skips spring football, sure I think you're more than justified in not wanting that type of kid on the team.
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Post by wolverine55 on May 15, 2015 7:14:58 GMT -6
I've found a few times over the years where special team plays seem to go missing, but even then, I could probably count on one hand how many times I've caught that.
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Post by wolverine55 on May 14, 2015 13:41:24 GMT -6
To go along with the post about the team taking a knee...this is a story I heard about my current program although I wasn't on board yet. They were at Iowa St. for a tournament and it was sort of a time/down combination for the game, not sure of the exact format. Anyway, it came down to the last drive and the only way my program's team could win was to get an interception on the last drive, so to ensure this didn't happen, the other team threw the ball straight out of bounds four plays in a row.
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Post by wolverine55 on May 4, 2015 13:38:10 GMT -6
I agree with what almost everyone has posted in terms of thinking they knew way more than they did. I definitely fit that as well. Also, when I was a younger coach, I didn't understand the importance of asking questions, even if they weren't about our scheme or our upcoming opponent in particular. I didn't fully realize the importance of learning just for the sake of learning. The best staff I've been a part of was my very first one, but I did a poor job of taking advantage of the opportunity.
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Post by wolverine55 on Apr 30, 2015 13:30:09 GMT -6
I think it's a good idea, but as others have said I don't see the need or reason to go beyond letting them on the sideline on game night. I wouldn't think the staff members of the week would want to be involved anymore than that anyway.
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Post by wolverine55 on Apr 27, 2015 6:47:47 GMT -6
At the risk of totally hijacking the thread, my brother's team once had "Homecoming Week" on a week where they played a road game...
I don't remember exact details now as it's been at least 7 years ago, but it had something to do with the volleyball team having a tournament the same weekend as the original homecoming and the girls not having time to get their hair done.
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Post by wolverine55 on Apr 25, 2015 17:04:53 GMT -6
Part of it with me is my last name is Fernetti and kids still think they're being clever when they rhyme my name with Italian food. It's natural for them to shorten it to "Fern" but at my current school most do say "Coach Fern" or "Mr. Fern" but I'm not particular on it.
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Post by wolverine55 on Apr 25, 2015 14:58:46 GMT -6
I've noticed the trend...but honestly it doesn't bother me one bit. I think how the kids act towards you is a much bigger sign of respect than what they call you.
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Post by wolverine55 on Apr 24, 2015 6:44:53 GMT -6
To me, if your school's athletic code only applies to in-season, there really isn't anything you can or should do other than talk to them about it. The school I'm at now has a year round policy so these guys would be looking at a minimum of a two-game suspension even if it did happen out of season.
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Post by wolverine55 on Apr 23, 2015 9:37:33 GMT -6
Overall, I agree! But, I could have asked too. In fact, based on that story, I have asked at every job since then what we wear for JV games. Other that one stop, though, we've been pretty casual at the underclassmen games.
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Post by wolverine55 on Apr 23, 2015 9:11:28 GMT -6
One memory involving dress I just thought of and a post on "expectations" triggered it. I learned at my second coaching job to always ask questions, even about something as seemingly unimportant as dress. We had a varsity game on Friday night and then a sophomore game the next morning. I showed up to the sophomore game wearing khaki shorts and a T-shirt. That's what we wore at the underclass games at my first coaching job, so I didn't think anything of it.
The next day in our staff meeting, the HC walks in and the first thing he said was, "What the hell were you doing yesterday!?" directed at me. I had no idea what he meant at first, but it was soon explained to me that we wore the polos for every game!
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Post by wolverine55 on Apr 17, 2015 6:32:38 GMT -6
I was at a clinic with a staff I was one in 2006 and we had had a very good season the year before. We went 11-1 and made the quarterfinals. Due to this, our HC was chosen to speak at the clinic...and it was the only session we went too the whole time. I was disappointed, to say the least.
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Post by wolverine55 on Apr 12, 2015 6:36:17 GMT -6
This is actually the one topic I try to avoid with players when they ask for my advice, which I could count on one hand the number of times a player has asked me about women though. I'm 35 years old, have a failed engagement on my resume, and haven't had a date in years. I'm the absolute LAST person that should be giving advice when it comes to matters of the opposite sex!
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Post by wolverine55 on Apr 8, 2015 7:42:15 GMT -6
Based on what we've done in the past, if you're going four days a week, I would alternate offense and defense and not do both in one day as the previous post is suggesting.
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Post by wolverine55 on Apr 6, 2015 8:24:53 GMT -6
When we have done it we have often held our best guys out. Either already banged up or didn't need them banged up in Okie. This makes no sense to me. If your best players can't do it because they will get hurt... Why in the heck would you have anyone do it? This would have lawsuit written all over it. I wasn't thinking about a lawsuit, but I was sort of thinking the same thing overall.
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Post by wolverine55 on Apr 4, 2015 13:46:15 GMT -6
I also believe that if you're going to bring them up, they'd should be major contributors if not starters. At my last job, we had a fairly talented sophomore group so the HC pulled several of them up to varsity. The problem was he didn't let them play JV because they were "varsity" players, but then they'd only play 10 or snaps in the varsity game. This soured several of them on football, a couple of them ended up not going out after that year, and even the ones who did stick it out I felt that year hindered their progress a bit. A somewhat related thought: I don't know if this is "entitlement" or just a different makeup with kids, but being selected to play "varsity" as an underclassmen doesn't seem to carry the prestige it used to. I think there was a time when kids would rather play limited varsity as a sophomore because he could still say he was a varsity player. Now, if the kid isn't going to get major PT, they'd rather not do it. I should add something to my above post since others have mentioned quarters limitations. We were not limited by how many quarters the kids were allowed to play; our HC chose to not dress those guys for JV even though they were not playing much varsity. If you aren't limited by quarters, I see nothing wrong with having sophomores play 10-12 varsity snaps a game. But, if they are playing that little on the varsity, they should be playing JV as well.
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Post by wolverine55 on Mar 30, 2015 16:48:02 GMT -6
it is the opossite here everyone gets a letter for everything... clubs and band get letters we GIVE JV LETTERS OUT, when i got here i was like WTF a small A for JV a larger one for Varsity... stupid our school doesnt care, because they charge the kids $20 for it, so they make a tiny bit so the more letters the happier they are I can't remember the last time I've seen anyone in my area wear a letterman's jacket, so I favor giving them out to everyone who "finishes the season in good standing." That just simply means anyone who doesn't quit before the end. To me it's a don't make a mountain out of a mole hill situation.
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Post by wolverine55 on Mar 26, 2015 7:39:50 GMT -6
I also believe that if you're going to bring them up, they'd should be major contributors if not starters. At my last job, we had a fairly talented sophomore group so the HC pulled several of them up to varsity. The problem was he didn't let them play JV because they were "varsity" players, but then they'd only play 10 or snaps in the varsity game. This soured several of them on football, a couple of them ended up not going out after that year, and even the ones who did stick it out I felt that year hindered their progress a bit.
A somewhat related thought: I don't know if this is "entitlement" or just a different makeup with kids, but being selected to play "varsity" as an underclassmen doesn't seem to carry the prestige it used to. I think there was a time when kids would rather play limited varsity as a sophomore because he could still say he was a varsity player. Now, if the kid isn't going to get major PT, they'd rather not do it.
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Post by wolverine55 on Mar 26, 2015 7:34:46 GMT -6
This will depend on your size of school and program a bit, obviously, but we're a school of around 625 and have around 70 players in the program 9-12. We actually practice all together and then the freshmen break off separate for scrimmaging/team/etc. We have 5 coaches for varsity--this includes the HC--and then two coaches for freshman. We play JV games, but all sophomores are considered varsity.
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Post by wolverine55 on Mar 9, 2015 8:41:13 GMT -6
I definitely reserve the coaching polo for Fridays only during the season, then it normally becomes my "casual Friday" go to shirt the rest of the school year once the season is over. For JV games, as has been asked about before, I normally go very casual for those. I normally just wear some sort of team T-shirt and then hoodie when it gets a bit colder. I would never go with sweat pants or wind pants for a varsity game but will occasionally for a JV.
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Post by wolverine55 on Mar 4, 2015 21:29:09 GMT -6
I've seen a HC wear a hard hat on the sidelines before. Other than that, nothing I've seen has every really stuck out in a good or bad way. I normally wear khaki shorts and team polo as late into the season as weather allows, but I have worked for a couple HCs that required khaki pants.
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Post by wolverine55 on Feb 24, 2015 7:47:08 GMT -6
I'm with larrymoe on this one. I don't think the ideas expressed in this thread are necessarily bad; I just don't think it should in any way whatsoever fall under a HC's list of duties. And, for those who say if the HC doesn't do it it won't get done, well, I would just let it not get done then.
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