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Post by scoresomemore on Oct 13, 2008 21:45:02 GMT -6
we are in our second year as a staff at our school, our numbers are in the the low 20's in school with about 600 students, the kids just dont seem to take well to coaching, are generally soft, and they think everything a coach says is personal, when they are being critiqued and coached how to fix it.
the town used to be a blue collar community, now as the factories and what not are diminishing, we are fighting to change a culture of losing and the classic "here we go again attitude" expressed when the other team makes a big play.
we do have some good athletes, we just need to turn the corner from a toughness and player investment standpoint, we did install a points system for the off-season and got decent commitment from some of the athletes,
we also have heard whispering of some of our younger studs talking about transferring to other nearby schools,
to wrap this up, i'm basically looking for any insight from others who have been in this situation and turned the corner.
thanks for the help
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Post by coachd5085 on Oct 13, 2008 22:00:06 GMT -6
STEP ONE...i know this sounds a bit extreme but..SCHEDULE FOR SUCCESS. You need to find games that you WILL WIN. It is imperative. The odds of turning the corner, when facing better competition...are slim. If you can "schedule" 3 or 4 wins..and pull out one or two wins...its a successful year and something to build on.
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Post by coachorr on Oct 13, 2008 22:09:14 GMT -6
Coachd5085, I could not agree more. This is a very good comment, I went out of the normal schedule and picked up a lower division game with a school who was just hungry to play. We won by one point and it will lead to a 500 season. 4 and 4 is much better than 3 and 4.
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Post by coachbdud on Oct 13, 2008 22:10:49 GMT -6
yes i agree, this is our year to turn it around. best record school has had in last 15 years is 3-7.
League was realigned and gave us 5 non league games, we are sitting at 4-1 now (should really be 5-0)
I scheduled decent teams i knew we could beat, our confidence is high and we are looking forward to open league play this week, if we can win 3 league games we will make playoffs for the first time in almost 20 years. Schedule to get your kids confidence up and then the community will start to have love for you. We are really starting to get some respect from other teams and the local paper
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Post by coachorr on Oct 13, 2008 22:11:40 GMT -6
Good luck in opening up in the league Coachdub.
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Post by bulldogoption on Oct 14, 2008 5:38:49 GMT -6
If it feels like you are taking a knife to a gun fight, that may never change.... I'm just speculating that it may have a lot to do with socioeconomic background. Your kids will always be bringing more baggage with them to practice. Most of them will always be coming from a household where the focus is NOT on the kids and their participation in activities. But we have "good" kids in our school. Sure you do, but SO DO the OTHER schools. And they have MORE of them. Football is a numbers game. You'll always be starting behind the 8 ball every season. Today's society is what is best for ME...RIGHT NOW... Kids aren't that interested in working hard for school pride. ESPECIALLY KIDS FROM A LOWER SOCIOECONOMIC BACKGROUND like you are probably dealing with. There are simply too many things for kids to do now... and its easy to choose something else other than working hard in the weight room all summer just to go out and help your team "improve" and "start a winning tradition" Can it be done?  Sure, anything is possible....but not likely. Year in and year out the schools with more kids who come from solid families will win. Those teams have more to choose from. Exceptions, yes, but those teams will win the majority of the time. |
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Post by rideanddecide on Oct 14, 2008 6:43:18 GMT -6
I somewhat agree with bulldog on this one.
I am there. We are a small school that fights a successful soccer program. Even after educating them on the importance of being at practice and lifting in the off season, parents still make excuses for their kids so the kids don't have to do the work.
Everyone understands when a kid quits...."Well I wouldn't want to work that hard either." or "He's second string anyways, it's not a big deal."
While I believe that there is a right person to turn around every program, sometimes you have to take the hard look in the mirror and ask yourself if you and the community are the right fit for each other. If not that doesn't make you a failure as a coach, it just means you don't fit--kind of like a bad marriage.
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Post by kylem56 on Oct 14, 2008 10:25:04 GMT -6
In a similar situation.. heres a few things we have done
1) Do everything first class, if they need new equipment, uniforms, etc. Find a way to do it.
2) Establish a culture of mental and physical toughness from day 1. You are going to lose a few but those who do quit, you realy dont want anyway. Stress discipline and finishing in everything you do
3) Keep everything simple. Keep your offense and defense simple as possible so they can play fast
4) Focus hard on special teams
5) Make sure your assistants are great teachers of the game. Also make sure that while they spread the "vision" of the HC, that they are still building relationships with their players. Goes back to the saying "they dont care how much you know untill they know how much you care"
6) Build relationships with the faculty and community. Hold youth camps, touchdown club night once a week for the parents to come and watch the game film and socialize etc.
7) Recruit the hallways hard. Even those kids who don;t quite look like football players.
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Post by coachd5085 on Oct 14, 2008 14:51:36 GMT -6
I also disagree with lightening the schedule. While winning more games may bring more kids into the program, I don't think it does much for the program generally speaking. My thoughts on this...i don't care how much of that great stuff you mention above (and it is really great stuff ! )...if you are going to play schools that you can't compete with, it WILL NOT WORK. If your schedule is John Curtis Christian, followed by South Lake Carroll, followed by Xavier... while you as a coach may see some improvement, neither the players, fans, or community will. The "culture of losing" will remain. Generally, there is one signifcant common denominator that teams/schools with losing cultures share. POOR WORK ETHIC. This schools, athletes, parents, and sometimes coaches simply HAVE NO CLUE what it means to really work hard. I believe that if you schedule some of these schools (lightenting the schedule) and THEN institute the work ethic necessary, your kids will see the fruits of their labor. If you push and push and push and push....and the kids start 0-4, 0-5 anyway....well just like you are fond of saying "if we can lose with him, we can lose without him"...it becomes easy to say..If we can lose WHILE busting our humps...we can lose WITHOUT working hard too... |
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newhc
Sophomore Member
Posts: 209
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Post by newhc on Oct 14, 2008 19:57:04 GMT -6
Hey Guys, I am there! I am in my first year and we are 0-7 right now. I think there are certain things that I have agree with in this post and certain things I don't agree with. Also let me tell you, I have built one program before and I had 80-100 kids in the program(JV and V) well in this new position I started with 15 up to 32 now. I was not the same in both programs. I believe that was my biggest mistake ever.
#1 Discipline is the key.
#2 Teach Fundamentals
#3 Hire your People (Coaches)
#4 Be committed to kids (help seniors get into school)
#5 Be committed to the off-season
I am the fan of doing those 5 things. Unfortunately they get hard to see when you are 0-7. I really needed this thread to gain my focus back. Thanks fellas!
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Post by coachorr on Oct 14, 2008 20:39:36 GMT -6
Winners expect to win, and in my mind, teaching kids how to be winners who expect to win is one of the hardest lessons to get across. Winning games is the quickest way to achieve this.
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Post by coachhortman on Oct 14, 2008 20:53:00 GMT -6
Having been on both sides of the coin, I think I can speak from experience. Before I came to the school that I am at now, I was at another private school in town. They hired me as the head jr high coach which was 7th though 9th grade. I put in my own offense and defense separate from the varsity because the head varsity coach was changing offenses every week. We were 8-1 with our only loss coming to the school that I am at now. I encouraged our younger players, gave praise where needed, gave instruction when they did wrong and let them know they were loved and THAT IT WAS NOT PERSONAL when I had to get on to them. I took that philosophy with me to the school that I am now. The school that I am at now, has a history of winning and knowing what it takes to win. It starts with committment and getting the seniors to lead the underclassmen. The seniors are actually extra coaches for us because they set the tone of what is expected. IF a young man is not taking care of business, a senior is talking to him and encouraging him to step it up. A coach is telling him that he can do it and that you want to carry on the torch. If you are a decent program, you schedule games that you know you can win to teach the kids how to win, as time goes by and they learn how to win, you start scheduling harder games to where they love seeing how they match up against the competition. Soon enough, you have a team that loves to play the top dogs.
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Post by touchdownmaker on Oct 15, 2008 5:59:21 GMT -6
Some communities will never embrace hard work. Some communities will never embrace discipline and details. Just my two cents. Still, the coach must stick to his guns and do things his own way.
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Post by goldenbear76 on Oct 16, 2008 22:20:51 GMT -6
I think when we took over the program i'm at now, one of the big turning points was when we got the team together and we discussed with the kids that we need to have the mentality that when we go into a game ..we do not "Hope" to win. We "Expect" to win. We expect to win because we are going to do all the little things well and when we get that team down..we are not going to let them back up. So many times you'll notice with programs that even when they are successful in a game..when something goes against them..they have this feeling of "here we go again". You have to get them to respond to adversity. Adversity is something they should be facing in practice, whether your in team drills or individual drills. Get the kids to execute and pat em on the back when they do.
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Post by FlexboneOne on Oct 20, 2008 9:49:01 GMT -6
I think when we took over the program i'm at now, one of the big turning points was when we got the team together and we discussed with the kids that we need to have the mentality that when we go into a game ..we do not "Hope" to win. We "Expect" to win. We expect to win because we are going to do all the little things well and when we get that team down..we are not going to let them back up. So many times you'll notice with programs that even when they are successful in a game..when something goes against them..they have this feeling of "here we go again". You have to get them to respond to adversity. Adversity is something they should be facing in practice, whether your in team drills or individual drills. Get the kids to execute and pat em on the back when they do. I'm in a position where I am the 3rd HC in 4 years. The kids, especially the seniors, have heard the "fight adversity" speech and the "expect to win" arguement many times from many people. They are numb to that now I think. My senior class has never had any success at any point during their HS career, and they are generally lame ducks at this point. Several of them were cancers (which I removed), but in all, their general attitude is "show emotion like we care, but we know the outcome before the game even starts". It's a battle that i will be fighting for a long time at this school. But, we will do the right things to correct the problems. It may not work at this school, but not because we didn't do things the right way. |
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Sure, anything is possible....but not likely. 
