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Post by coachorr on Dec 28, 2008 13:34:05 GMT -6
Can't wait to see it. Nice passing attack. The floods are great.
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Post by catz1 on Dec 28, 2008 13:51:30 GMT -6
Can't wait to see it. Nice passing attack. The floods are great. Thanks. Just an example of keeping it simple and trying to execute. Lots of things we could have done better, but we play 4A in PA against pretty good competition and had reasonable success. A lot of mileage from a few concepts. For youth coaches (w/ most in run first systems), I think it is really important to just a have a few pass plays that are executed well. I'll try to get the other stuff up soon. Felt like we ran Jet Sweep & Jet Ice well. Wide counters (Jet Power Ctr & Jet Truck) could have been better. Both are a little tough to run versus some of the D's we faced... a few well coached 4-4's. While not a counter, the Belly/Down Sweeps gave us a deceptive wide attack that was pretty effective.
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Post by coachorr on Dec 28, 2008 14:16:11 GMT -6
Try a double slot look so that they have to base up their defense.
----X---------------------T--G--C--G--T------------------------Z ------------------------3--------Q--------4 ----------------------------------F
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Post by headtrip on Dec 28, 2008 14:24:25 GMT -6
Head trip: "if it's just ignorance you can fix that, but given the amount of information that is this available in this day and age there's probably a good bit of apathy mixed in there." This is a good point. I would also add, that some have a hard time having a little bit of humility to ask for help. Somehow, I need to create a non-threatening environment. And I think that forcing a playbook would not be the best way to do this, however, give a talk on offensive systems. I don't care what Offense they run, as much as I just want them to teach kids the game and focus on the details. a high school here put on a 2 day clinic for the kids, their coaches set up and run stations and we youth coaches helped the position coaches keep the kids straight. really helped me with position evaluation as well. after the first day of the kids clinic, they invited the coaches in to talk offense and defense. i went with offense, so i don't know how the defensive group worked, but the offensive coaches asked what we were running and gave us some pointers, showed us some things we could do, and basically gave us as much of their time as we wanted. very helpful, very non-threatening, they never pushed an offense, just gave us suggestions on how best to run ours.
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Post by davecisar on Dec 28, 2008 15:00:34 GMT -6
Coach Orr,
The horror stories about your local Junior High running kids 2 miles and not knowing the basics sounds a lot like what we see in the Public Schools where Ive coached the last 15 years. All the top players gravitate to club ball.
However the youth programs especially at that age group usually have very competent coaching, they have to. In pay to play, if your teams are consistently bad, you get lower numbers, the downward spiral continues, grows until eventually there is no organization left, It happens around here all the time, even to orgs that have been around 15-20 years and get a poor string of coaches. The market decides if you survive or not and if your coaching is poor, usually you dont survive in the long run. Long live the free market the ultimate regulator LOL.
Free school ball is a totally different dynamic and can "survive" forever even in the midst of consistent incompetence.
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Post by coachorr on Dec 28, 2008 17:40:28 GMT -6
Don't get me wrong, I don't want to bad mouth anyone and I appreiciate the many good things they do. I would just like them to do something football wise for conditioning. For example, Offensively, I like to do perfect plays on cones or bags and make it a circuit with three different alignments. Huddle, call the play, Sprint to the LOS (with line splits and cones), snap the ball sprint five yards jog five Huddle. Do the same against another front, sprint five cross the field and do it coming back.
Defensively, I like to do pursuit drill. Line up in the defense, make a strength call (I lay five bags on the ground to simulate five olinemen), there is a rabbit behind me with the football and two cones 7 yards outside the bags on either side. On my command the defense chops their feet, when I motion downward with the football, they hit the deck and get back up into the chop the feet position. One the second one, the rabbit takes off around the cone and the defense has to pursue and touch his back hip without impeding him.
These two drills alone would be much better than running two miles. Add tackling stations and you would have almost an hour of conditioning and practice on fundamentals as a team. Add individual to that and then you would really be cooking with gas.
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Post by coachorr on Dec 28, 2008 17:41:23 GMT -6
Headtrip, I like the idea of making it a two day affair with a follow-up coaches clinic to fill in the gaps.
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Post by headtrip on Dec 28, 2008 20:10:12 GMT -6
i got a lot out of that clinic, they were coaching us as well as the players while we were out on the field, and then we got to spend time talking x's and o's as well as the good the bad and the ugly of whatever particular system each coach was running.
they set up 8 stations, we made it through 4 the first day and finished the next day. we had the coaches clinic after the first day, simply because that day was on a weekend and people had time to stay.
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Post by coachorr on Dec 28, 2008 22:19:41 GMT -6
The youth clinic I helped with this last year we had 8 stations on Friday. 4 Stations on Saturday AM and 4 On Saturday PM. I think the clinic time would have been good. What went well, I thought on Saturday was 50 min. team time of coaches with their teams.
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Post by coachdoug on Dec 29, 2008 17:11:24 GMT -6
Coach – sorry I didn’t get in this conversation sooner, I was away for the holiday. Anyway, I think it’s great that you and your staff are trying to be helpful and supportive of your local youth program. I agree with a lot of the comments that have already been posted such as keeping the coaching clinic to a single day and the players’ camp to a 2 or 3 day weekend; and not forcing the HS playbook and schemes on the youth program. What you can do will vary greatly depending on the nature of your school’s involvement with the youth program. For instance, if you are providing uniforms, equipment, practice and game fields, officials, etc., then you can and should have a lot more say in what the youth program does than if you simply allow the youth program to rent your field for games for a fee. The latter is our relationship with our high school, and we actually send almost as many players to our other local high school (I’ve actually sent kids to over 20 different high schools here in greater Los Angeles over the years), so we don’t exactly have a super tight relationship with the high school. If they came to us and demanded that we run their system, I would have a hard time taking them seriously. A few things that I would suggest you cover include: - Practice Organization. This is probably the single biggest issue I see with most youth programs. The majority of youth coaches I see get together while the team is stretching and discuss what they’re going to do that practice, and then they have the kids standing around watching for 10 minutes while they set up drills. And, it’s not just planning each individual practice, but planning out the entire preseason – the coach should know when he’ll be installing each piece of his offense, defense and special teams. Showing coaches how to plan and set up practices to waste as little time as possible would be the single biggest benefit you could provide.
- Game Planning. Most youth coaches just have a play sheet (if that) and make play calling decisions on the fly. Share your game planning materials with the youth coaches and show them how to plan in advance for what plays to run in various situations (2nd and long, 3rd & short, goalline, 2-minute offense, etc.).
- Time Management. Most youth coaches don’t have a clue about to how to use their timeouts and how to prepare their team for a 2-minute drill situation.
- Fundamentals. Let the youth coaches know what skills are most beneficial for the kids to have as they enter HS. Obviously, blocking and tackling are at the top of the list, but you’ll also want to go in to detail about what kinds of blocks they should know (for instance, drive blocking, combo blocking, trap blocking and kick out blocking in the run game are important, but logging may not be realistic), and how you teach proper form on tackling. Likewise, details on footwork for running backs and receivers would be helpful. On the flip side, be aware of some things that seem like no brainers, but aren’t realistic – for instance, a lot of high school coaches express shock that youth coaches can’t teach their players a proper stance. The reality is that for a lot of kids, prior to puberty, they just cannot comfortably get into a proper stance. I’ve seen coaches waste an inordinate amount of time trying to fix a kid’s bad stance to no avail. But when that same kid goes through puberty and his muscles mature a bit, he usually fixes his stance on his own in about 10 minutes. After learning the hard way, now I teach all the kids a proper stance, and try to fix bad ones a few times, but as long as a kid is comfortable and can reasonably get into his assignments, I won’t waste a lot of time on it.
- Developing Schemes. As mentioned above, I wouldn’t force your scheme (or any other scheme) on the youth coaches, but you can tell them what ingredients are necessary for a sound scheme on either side of the ball (for instance, any sound defense should have gap integrity, force, inside-out pursuit, alley coverage, deep coverage and protection against gadget plays).This will at least provide them with a framework to make sure that what they are doing is sound.
- Creating Plays. Most schemes come with a set of built-in plays, but a lot of coaches want to create some on their own. You can try to discourage them, but if they’re going to do it anyway, give them some tools. For instance, review the concept of series in the run game so that any new play isn’t just a random event, but part of a coherent plan that takes advantage of how the defense reacts to some other play in the series. Or, in the passing game, review some basic concepts like mesh, shallow cross, flood, etc., and explain how those concepts are designed to get a receiver open against various coverages (keeping in mind that 90% of youth defenses play either Man Free, Cover-3, or Cover-2, in that order). Youth coaches often just draw up a bunch of random patterns and tell the QB to find the open receiver.
Some other things that would be great to see, but that a HS staff may not be particularly qualified to speak on include: - Managing the Minimum Play Rule (MPR). This assumes that your youth league has an MPR, but even if they don’t, at the youth level, the coaches should have a policy that guarantees every player on the team a certain amount of playing time provided they come to practice and such. Most rookie coaches make bad mistakes in this area. Since high schools don’t have to deal with these rules, your staff may not be able to help much in this area.
- Dealing with Parents. All levels (except maybe the NFL) have to deal with parents, but the issues faced by youth coaches are a bit different from what the HS coach faces. OTOH, the basic process of setting expectations and communicating philosophy and policy may not be so different. If you have a preseason letter or handout that you send to parents, you should share that with your youth coaches.
A few things to do, not do, and to keep in mind: - Plan this well in advance and shoot for some time in July before the youth practices start. Get feedback from the youth organization on what dates would be good and then communicate the dates as far in advance as possible. Once our local high school tried to set something up on the weekend following July 4th and made the announcement in mid June. Well, most of the youth coaches already had plans to be out of town over that weekend, so they canceled it because not enough coaches were coming. Then they gave us an attitude of, “Hey, we tried to help you, but none of you were very interested …”
- Use your varsity players (or J.V. players) to demonstrate drills and concepts at your clinic. This will allow the coaches to see what the drill looks like when run properly. Make sure to focus on the coaching points for each drill. Running the drills PROPERLY will yield dramatically better results than simply running the drills. Also, always keep in mind maximizing reps and limiting down time – if it’s a 2-player drill and there are 30 guys that have to go through it, have at least 4-5 stations going simultaneously so that don't have 28 guys watching 2.
- Don’t plan either the clinic or the camp any earlier than July, or you will likely have conflicts with other sports. A lot of sports families take their family vacations during July so they don’t have to miss any practice, so again, plenty of advance notice is a good idea.
- Make you and your staff available to answer questions afterwards – not just after the clinic for a few minutes, but via telephone and email over the course of the season. This is especially important for coaches that want to have more in-depth discussions about the details and coaching points for various schemes or techniques.
- Involve the youth coaches in the camp so that you can coach the coaches on how to run various drills as you are putting the players through them.
- Be aware that very few youth linemen will be HS linemen. Most HS linemen are too big to play youth ball. Most youth linemen end up either not playing in HS or getting moved to TE, FB or LB.
- Provide both the players and the youth coaches with resources to get additional information and training. Give the coaches links to this site as well as other coaching boards & sites and other local clinics that may be of value. Give both players and coaches info on other local camps, especially position specific camps (such as for QBs, receivers, or kickers), where they will get much more in-depth instruction than you can provide in a 2-day general camp.
- To continue developing your relationship with the youth program, grant all youth players wearing their jerseys free admission to your games; invite them to your locker room at least once or twice a year to see and hear you pre-game preparation; allow youth players to be your ball boys; have the HS coaches conspicuously watch at least some of the youth games; and have the HS coaches visit a few youth practices and address the players.
I hope that helps. I wish you the best of luck and I hope your local youth program appreciates the help you are trying to give them.
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Post by coachorr on Dec 29, 2008 20:20:59 GMT -6
Great post Doug. I agree with the rotation on the drills. Some of my own coaches don't really know how to do this very well. Coming from a Wing-T scheme in a former life, rotation through drills was huge. The timing issues are going to be huge thanks for the heads up.
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Post by jhanawa on Dec 30, 2008 13:47:01 GMT -6
Doug, thats good stuff, I'm going to print it for future reference. The HS that I currently coach at is in a different area than the youth teams area that I have coached at for the last 10yrs, so I'm going to try to create some ties to the youth program near the HS. I'd really like to develop a "feeder" program in this area into the HS. Some of the things we are looking at are junior clinics for kids and staffs and then inviting those teams to our passing league. We started hosting our own passing league last summer for jr. midget, midgets and incoming frosh teams, we did it over a 3 week span and it turned out great. I think this is something that the clinics can build towards and create a bond between the programs over a period of time. Coachorr,
One idea I might share is if you are going to do a clinic for coaches and kids, is to have the clinic for the coaches before the kids and then have the coaches help coach what they've just learned to the kids with the help of your Varsity/JV kids. for example (length of time and subjects would vary) 4-6pm coaches only clinic, subject= teaching form tackling, format= 4 stations. On the field with coaches and varsity kids, teach the coaches how to teach the drills. 6-8pm, youth kids in the same stations, with the youth coaches and varsity kids teaching the 4 stations.... this could be split offense/defense, etc, etc.... IMO, this reinforces the learning process for the coaches by gaining hands on experience rather than just taking notes and allows them interaction with their kids. It's important to teach the coaches how to teach in a positive manner and get them involved in the process.
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Post by coachorr on Dec 30, 2008 17:24:09 GMT -6
Great idea on teaching the coaches. What about having the coaches teach the stations with HS players as teh guinea pigs.
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Post by jhanawa on Dec 30, 2008 19:03:21 GMT -6
Coachorr, That would make it even better IMO. Give them a "dry run" to get there delivery down.
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Post by los on Dec 30, 2008 19:51:57 GMT -6
Good ideas jh and coachorr....I think it would also be a good idea to let your hs players(if they'd be interested?) be involved as "demonstrators" for the coach's, at the start of each station(during the youth player segment)......little kids seem to "catch on to something quicker".....if they see older kids, doing it "the right way", first......( rather than a bunch of semi-out of shape youth coach's, who may or may not be doing the demo's just right), lol.....just a thought. Not trying to be harsh, but I'm sure there's no comparison between a tackling demo(by an old fat guy, like myself), and a current HS athlete, that knows what he's doing....if you're going for visual effect, lol. ;D
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Post by jhanawa on Dec 30, 2008 20:43:01 GMT -6
Los, the demo's would be done by the HS kids, the clinic coaches would explain it to the youth coaches, then the youth coaches would "explain and coach it" to the HS kids as a practice period in teaching. Then the youth coaches, with the assistance of the HS kids and oversight of the clinic coaches, would explain it to the youth kids during the youth clinic.
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Post by los on Dec 30, 2008 21:08:58 GMT -6
Yep, good idea all the way around! Good luck coachorr!
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Shotgun1
Sophomore Member
It is better to die trying than to quit...
Posts: 214
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Post by Shotgun1 on Dec 30, 2008 21:44:46 GMT -6
Most problems I see at the youth level are related to organization, practice and game, and teaching of the basics. After that next would be scheme related with being too complicated. Youth coaches also need to be good motivators and get the kids psyched up for practice and keep them going with an upbeat tempo.
Practice organization and plans (lots of indy) Simple drills to teach basics Solid scheme (KISS) Great reply coachdoug!
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Post by coachorr on Dec 31, 2008 0:58:39 GMT -6
Shotgun1, you are preaching to the choir there. I would rather a team have an inside run, off tackle run, sweep and one play action pass and spend a majority of their time teaching basics. I love the idea of HS players as models, we do it for kids in every youth clinic/camp I have been involved in, but I have never done it for coaches. The way I see it, is set the drill up, run a couple of players through it and then let a youth coach take a stab at it. Good idea.
When you talk scheme, I have got some real simple concepts to teach simple systems of offense for the upfront guys. For example: Lead and veer I teach a covered and bubble concept (very similar plays totally different offenses) Trap= GAP+GAP+ Trap, (belly and Down are outside trap). Power= GAP, ON Down, Jet(Fly),Rocket, Lead Sweep, Speed Option "Ricky Technique" Inside Zone and outside zone= Duece combo technique slowly switching to POBA
The point is, I would like to see what it is these guys want to run, what it is they are trying to accomplish and do exactly what you guys are saying. Show them how to plan and organize a practice, install and teach (in a concise and easy to understand manner), help coaches to see that while the "what" you do is important but more importantly "how" you do it.
I get somewhat frustrated at times, when I go to youth games and I hear expressions like "Come on line, you gotta block somebody". This one is a little better but not much, "Jimmy you gotta block the guy in front of ya". Rather than, "Jimmy, on 182 you are the guard. This is an outside trap play. You're trying to trap the right guy, but he is slipping your block, because your angle isn't across the line of scrimmage, so you are having a hard time getting the same shoulder block and blocking inside out and scoop him out like an ice cream scoop. Just like 124 and 926 trap and just like we have practiced for 182, you have to come across the nose of the football; eventhough, there is not a football. What step do you think you need to take, that's right 2 o'clock punch pull step. Now let's look at it on the board."
And the kid would have been in a "Homer's Dairy" situation where in ten minutes he would have gotten 4 to 10 reps each way every day in practice. Assuming we are a wing-t team and Sweep, trap, waggle, belly and down are our offense.
Interesting point however, I have learned just as much from youth coaches as I have from anyone. So, running a clinic is a big help to me too, because while I may be teaching and instructing I am also always listening and learning. And I got a ton more to learn I'll tell you that.
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Post by coachorr on Dec 31, 2008 1:12:35 GMT -6
Coach Doug you said: "If they came to us and demanded that we run their system, I would have a hard time taking them seriously." Actually Doug, if I were to come to you after 20 some years of experience, it wouldn't be to force a system on you, it would be to ask what you do and why. Reason? Because if you can do something successfully with kids who are very short on football experience, you must know something that I want to know.
Then I would say, here is what we run what do you like about it and why and what would you change and why.
Now if you were here in Idaho, where all of your kids you coach come through my program, I would then ask how can we streamline what the two of us do to make it as similar as possible?
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Shotgun1
Sophomore Member
It is better to die trying than to quit...
Posts: 214
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Post by Shotgun1 on Dec 31, 2008 15:45:48 GMT -6
Coach Orr, we are in the same choir! As far as I can see you need the youth clubs to buy in to your philosophy. I agree that your philosophy is correct and it is very similar to what we do with our youth organization that we just formed and had a very successful first year with. I coach for a neighboring district in which I teach. However, I live in another district that did not have a youth football program. My son wanted to play tackle football very badly, 9 years old, and I looked into the 3-4 programs that are in are area. All of the programs isolate themselves from the HS programs and want nothing to do with them. I started thinking about why in the district do I live in that we do not have a program that caters to our kids? SO we started our own program and joined an existing league.
Having been a HS football coach and now coaching at the MS level I new it was important to have great coaching at the youth level. In order to do this we invited the HS head coach to all the meetings we had and decide that we needed to support their program and they needed to support us. HE was great and when we set up the club he and his staff invited potential coaches to spring ball practices. They also took the coaches through offensive and defensive practices taking the coaches through basic position and group drills. When we spoke about what scheme do you want us to run the HS head coach just wanted us to teach basic football fundamentals using their terminolgy. He stated, fundamentals at the youth level are the most important thing but urged us to keep the scheme simple. So each group runs a basic wing-t offense using the HS terminolgy, the HS is multipe formation with a little bit of everything, and a base 5-2/5-3 defense.
I know that starting a new program is not an option but you need to change the mind set of the youth program in your area. Biggest thing I think we have going for us is that we are a program and nobody is above the program. We are a group of people that are trying to improve our community through football and its teachings. We have a common goal of providing the best teaching we can of the basics of fundamental football from our flag league up until the kids start middle school football. If they choose not to play football they have learned that hard work, team work, sportsmanship and discipline can help them in life.
In order to do this the coaches have to "buy in to the program and participate". If they do not want to buy in they can coach for another organization in the area. However, there may not be too many left because a lot of their kids have come to our program.
GET THE COACHES TO BUY INTO THE PROGRAM PHILOSOPHY
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Post by coachorr on Dec 31, 2008 20:35:42 GMT -6
I think that buying in takes an open minded non-threatening approach as in, "this is what we do this is what we teach and these are the reasons why". Then say, "do you like any of it and how might we help incorporate some of this into what you do?".
I am not worried about what scheme they run as you and others have mentioned; however, I am concerned with a well organized and up-tempo practice that teaches fundamentals of the game. Few lines and lots of reps and lots of coaching. And coaching in the right way.
Going from "Come on Johnny, you big hog get him".
To: "Johnny, way to fire off the ball, now let's work on finishing the block with our feet moving". Which is more effective?
If a youth coach wants to run an I formation Pro system fine, but the kids need know who to drive, down, kick and double team very well. If he wants to run a wing-t system, his kids need know how to on-block (drive block), down block, gap block, trap block and double team block. If he wants to run a DW scheme his kids need to know how to GOD block and double team efectively, drive block, trap block and reach block. If the coach wants to run a Shotgun Zone read, then the kids better zone well and have a system for two on one four eyes on another, like POBA.
Imagine, if you had receivers in the 6th grade and up (because they had been doing it since 4th grade) running precise routes and doing things like getting defenders to open up when run unside or underneath routes. Or if you could have QB's being able to make two reads and understand concepts like hi-lo and then being able to take advantage. Rb's understanding how to read the blocks of the linemen. Defensive players who understood gap responsibility, pursuit angles and tackling fundamentals. Dlinemen how to strike, shed and take good angles to make plays. LB's who knew what the difference between closed door and open door and how to play through a gap inside out. Corners who knew what a read step and a cushion were in a zone scheme and safeties who play over the top?
These are just a few examples of things that no matter what the scheme were, if kids showed up their Freshman year with this type of knowledge and would have been doing similar drills using similar nomenclature and vocab as the High Scholl, just think how successful the kids would be. It would be awesome for them.
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shag
Probationary Member
Posts: 7
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Post by shag on Jan 9, 2009 21:35:01 GMT -6
Coachorr, I have been working with our HS coaching staff for the last two years. The two things that I have found most useful that they have done is 1. They invited me to come to their practices and be on the field with them during practice. This allowed me to see what they were teaching, how they were teaching it and most importantly if I had questions they were more than happy to explain to me why they were teaching it. 2. They have an open door policy to their office. This allows me to go in when they are not busy and set down with them in front of a white board and they freely discuss anything and everything with me. They have shared all of their material both offense and defense and have taken the time to cover anythign I have had questions on.
They take the time to make me feel like I am part of the organization even though I am not a member of their coaching staff. If you want the youth coaches to run your offense and defense you need to make them feel like they are part of your team. Give them as much access to you and your time as possible.
The clinics are a GREAT idea, as a youth coach I would much rather have access to you all season long than just a few hours a couple of times before the season.
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Post by coachdoug on Jan 9, 2009 21:48:39 GMT -6
Coach Doug you said: "If they came to us and demanded that we run their system, I would have a hard time taking them seriously." Actually Doug, if I were to come to you after 20 some years of experience, it wouldn't be to force a system on you, it would be to ask what you do and why. Reason? Because if you can do something successfully with kids who are very short on football experience, you must know something that I want to know. Then I would say, here is what we run what do you like about it and why and what would you change and why. Now if you were here in Idaho, where all of your kids you coach come through my program, I would then ask how can we streamline what the two of us do to make it as similar as possible? I understand coach and I agree with you. I was just pointing out that what you can reasonably expect to do with your local youth program will largely be dependent on your level of involvment with that program. If you are intimately involved with them, then you will have a lot more ability to direct (or at least suggest) how they do things. I was simply pointing out that in our situation (our high school is only one of several that our kids go to, and all they really do for us is allow us to pay them to use their field), a mandate from the high school coaches would probably not be received well. One thing I forgot to mention earlier is that it is an excellent idea to get all levels of the youth program using the same terminology. Some DW or Wing-T systems (and others) have specific number schemes and such, but if you can get the entire youth program using the same terminology and numbering (as much as possible, anyway), it would be a very good idea. I know how frustrating it is to learn one thing, and then get to another team and have that same thing mean something else entirely.
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Post by coachorr on Jan 11, 2009 21:17:03 GMT -6
Coach Doug, Great post. I would like to see youth teams at least just call two back sets colors and one back sets something else, then use the numbering system we use (evens to the right odds to the left) and use our route tree. That would be a good start.
Let me ask this board something. My staff is interested in having a clinic and doing at least two camps as well as possibly doing a fundamentals clinic once a week.
I think we will combine our efforts with the other side of the town, who does a camp in June right when school ends. Then throughout the summer provide the fundamentals clinic. Is this something that we should divide up by age? 3rd, 4th, 5th, and then 7th and 8th.
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Post by los on Jan 11, 2009 22:03:49 GMT -6
coachorr, the format you're considering, kinda sounds like our "county fair" fundamental stations, we did at the start of every season......we divided the "individual groups" of kids by age, size and "skill level"(if you can determine this?), but all ages (8-12's) went thru the same stations and practiced at the same time......important thing is, if theres gonna be any live contact drills, to have fairly matched sets of partners, within each small group......we determined the size of each group, by the number of coach's/stations divided by the total number of kids participating..... trying to keep each group at around 8-10 kids......since we did this in early to mid august, from 5-7ish pm when its still pretty hot......we also had a watering station, where each group had a chance to drink/rest a segment.....the real key to me, was having interesting,useful fundamental drills, that are fun and keep the kids attention.......give each coach enough to do, so each segment/station takes about the same time to get all the kids thru it......we also liked to let the coach's rotate to the different stations, so at the end of a week or so , they had taught every drill. We generally tried to give (at least) 15-20 minutes per station each day before rotating. Our 1st two days were usually without equipment.....then the other 3-5 days, with full equipment. We set up the stations literally in a circular fashion and rotated clockwise on a horn....I really enjoyed this format, as it kept with my overall philosophy of coaching youth football......."try to teach every kid, the generic, basic skills, of every position/skill set, reguardless of their physical stature at these ages"
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Post by coachorr on Jan 12, 2009 0:51:35 GMT -6
Thanks for the reply. I am thinking similar, however, a summer long format once a week in a non padded situation. Something like this: 5-7 minute Dynamic Warmup 5-10 minute stretch Water 10 minute Team competion (Tag, tug o war, centipede, etc) Water 28 min. 4 Agility stations 7 Minutes each. Water 20-30 Min. Position Breakout or One position for the whole team Water 30 min. 7 on 7 for all players (Probably work on routes, formations, defensive alignments and defensive drops heavily for the first three or four practices) End Clinic hand out $100 bills and the latest Xbox game to each kid and thank them for coming. I figure this will keep em coming back.
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Post by coachorr on Jan 12, 2009 0:57:36 GMT -6
On a side note, I am not going to charge anything for the clinic, and I will have my staff and hopefully parent coaches on hand to assist. By not charging am I going to hurt commitment? Also, Looking at the above format, if I broke this out for 4th-6th on Monday and 7th-8th on Tuesday, I think I could better utilize the drills by splitting up the kids. This way.
Another comment and tell me if I am off base. I would also like to invite the 7th and 8th grade group to come to the weight room Monday thru Wednesday, to get into the swing. They would come in with the 9th graders so there would be very little pressure to lift a lot of weight. Is this a bad idea? Are they too young?
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Post by coachorr on Jan 12, 2009 0:59:26 GMT -6
Los, please tell me more about the county fair. We used to do this at another school I was at and it was more of a conditioning workout.
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Post by coachorr on Jan 12, 2009 1:01:41 GMT -6
I also have a meeting with the Grid Kid director and a youth coach from the other side of town on the 20th. We are definitely doing a city-wide camp at the first of June. I am going to talk about the clinic idea and talk about an Offense Defense camp late in July.
Two more thoughts, I would like to create a 7 on 7 league for 7th and 8th grade division as well as a 9th grade division. Any thoughts? We have a challenge right now, that the coaches and the teams are not selected until August. Some teams just stay together, but under the current system, many slip through the cracks. I would like to setup a Wednesday night league.
The other thought, I want to try and do a similar setup for basketball players who come to our school. Open gyms, fundamental camps, scrimmages, and clinics. I am wondering if that will be too much to ask kids to do or will their be a lot of carry over and potential to build stronger relationships with players and coaches. Thoughts?
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