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Post by coachcb on Feb 22, 2009 11:03:56 GMT -6
We have had lots of threads discussing offseason workouts, but we haven't discussed how you sell these workouts to the kids.
If you're walking into a program that hasn't had much success, it doesn't seem like you're going to be able to sell the "GOTTA LIFT TO WIN" angle initially.
What are some of the ways you guys sell off season workouts to the kids?
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Post by bigm0073 on Feb 22, 2009 11:21:29 GMT -6
Hmmm.... Sell? I would call it apart of our expectations...
What I do with the players he ask them this simple question..
"What do you want for yourself for this upcoming season" ... I ask them their goals for the team and personally...
From there we outline how it has to get done. Obviously working out HAS to be apart of that equation. For players that do not come consistently they weed themselves out and are replaced by other players...
I have been at two programs - both of them had questionable off-season expectations. At both places I met with the kids individually and outlined what they needed to be successful.. .At both schools the upcoming senior class really struggled with this concept. I ended up weeding them out and playing young kids. The best thing I did at my current job is get rid of the seniors who did not want to work and play all young kids.;.. They all worded hard and last year I had 16 Freshman and Sophomores start for us... Yeah we took our licks but I have 20 starters returning and they ALL work hard.
Right now my hardest working players are the older kids who are returning starters. It is great for our team. We now have that as apart of our culture. The younger kids see all of the starters working hard in the weight room and it sets the bar for what needs to be done.
Again I do not sell or beg. I recognize good kids, with good grades with a good work ethic and we focus on them. The other kids either "Hop to" or they do not usually last long.
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Post by touchdownmaker on Feb 22, 2009 12:08:52 GMT -6
I sell it by building lifting time into our practices and then continuing one week after the season ends. I keep score/stats on attendance, achievement and other things. I get on the kids who dont lift. Every three months they get an evaluation, basically its good/average/poor
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Post by bccarnes on Feb 23, 2009 12:55:34 GMT -6
One thing that our varsity wrestling coach does is an Iron Man Competition. There is a point system for number of pullup, pushups, timed two mile run, etc. It is pretty flexible, but you can do something for the top improved players or just the top overall players. They give out t-shirts that are pretty cool and that has really helped them out to get guys motivated in the summer. I guess that doesn't exactly answer your question on how to sell the program, but I know it has helped them out.
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Post by touchdowng on Feb 23, 2009 20:25:52 GMT -6
We make it an expectation and we use the word "expect" a lot in our program. We sell it to parents with injury prevention in mind. That's an easy sell.
We also work hard to make the weight room and off-season activities all about FUN and hard work. We have a website dedicated to just our off-season endeavors and we recognize our players like crazy in it. We build group competition into our off-season activities.
We award T shirts for improvement and reaching total poundage landmarks.
We also man our weightroom with at least 3 coaches everyday when we lift and we don't let kids loaf -ever. It is a high energy, work environment and we are 100% engaged when we are in the weight room and on the field. You'll never catch our coaches with their hands in their pockets; they're enouraging, coaching, spotting and occasionally lifting with the players.
Away from these two places we like to have a lot of fun with our players because we should never forget that FUN is the main reason most of them are playing. We have a program that has 120 players in it. Most of our kids are 2 or 3 sport athletes and in the winter we have between 45 and 50 kids lifting (out of about 90 who are returning) / Spring it drops to 40 because many do track. In the summer our numbers are always over 60 each day.
We (the staff) built this culture from scratch. We opened up 4 years ago and it wasn't like this year one. It's taken some time to build up to this and a constant expectation that never waivers.
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Post by tog on Feb 23, 2009 21:48:25 GMT -6
i would love to talk about this now
but i gotta go to sleep
lol
the a27 offseason blaster workout
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Post by tog on Feb 24, 2009 8:57:16 GMT -6
to the op
we make em
they see the results
it creates a snowball downhill affect
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Post by coachcb on Feb 24, 2009 9:59:49 GMT -6
Let's assume that you've just walked into a program that's won 10 games in 10 years and has has 3 different HCs over that time.
Every HC a head of you has used a traditional approach; demanding it of the kids, expecting it of the kids, etc... Now, I'm not saying this is wrong, but hear me out.
The kids in that program have heard each HC say these things and many of them do put some time into the weight room; just to go out during the season and have their butts handed to them.
Now, they have another new HC, telling them the same exact things. To me, it seems that a different approach may be in order for at least the first year.
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sbv
Sophomore Member
Posts: 171
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Post by sbv on Feb 24, 2009 10:45:17 GMT -6
I offer them three things: For each day of weights, summer camp, 7on7 that they come to I will take off 1 champion (this is 5 updowns, 5 yards of bear crawls, etc. for 100 yards) from their total (the total number is the number of available summer weights days minus one week) and I present it that I will "reward" for the days that you show up (this is important because if I punished those who missed it would be against the rules). The second thing that I do is for all of the players who make 90% of the days of weights I take them paintballing for free. So far this has worked pretty well. This past year I also put the kids in groups, let the 4 captains pick who was in their group, and gave each team 1 point for each person there each day. For every kid missing in that day from that group the group got 5 minutes of stairs and the group with the most points at the end of the week got to go to CiCis pizza on me.
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Post by phantom on Feb 24, 2009 10:58:44 GMT -6
The kids in that program have heard each HC say these things and many of them do put some time into the weight room; just to go out during the season and have their butts handed to them. MANY of them putting SOME time in isn't good enough. Also "putting time in" isn't the same as "working". |
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Post by CoachDaniel on Feb 24, 2009 11:55:56 GMT -6
You're right, you can't sell them that its going to make them winners if they've been in the weight room before. YOU may know that they didn't work that hard, but to THEM it was. They don't know any better. How do you sell them? Like you'd sell anything else. What do THEY want? They want big arms, they want a big bench press, they want girls, etc. Sell them on that. Is that what you're giving them? Not really your intention, but it is a bonus of a good program (we bench once a week, it still goes up). BE A SALESMAN, don't try to cram it down their throat as being "expected". Some of them will just quit. There are a lot of other things kids can be doing, and in most areas you don't have to be a football player to be "cool", so you better sell them on something they want.
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Post by ajreaper on Feb 24, 2009 13:32:38 GMT -6
the only guarantee in sports is this- if you are outworked by an opponent and he has as much talent as your team you'll lose, if they have more again you will lose ,if you have more then you've opened the door and are making it a toss up at best.
Working hard guarantees absolutely nothing in sports- no more so then not smoking can guarantee you'll not get lung cancer. However we all know the odds are much better if you choose not to smoke just like the odds for being successful improve if you are willing to work hard.
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Post by jgordon1 on Feb 24, 2009 16:10:15 GMT -6
the only guarantee in sports is this- if you are outworked by an opponent and he has as much talent as your team you'll lose, if they have more again you will lose ,if you have more then you've opened the door and are making it a toss up at best. Working hard guarantees absolutely nothing in sports- no more so then not smoking can guarantee you'll not get lung cancer. However we all know the odds are much better if you choose not to smoke just like the odds for being successful improve if you are willing to work hard. Great Point Reaper: goes hand in hand w/ the entitlement rhread |
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Post by coachd5085 on Feb 24, 2009 16:32:04 GMT -6
Let's assume that you've just walked into a program that's won 10 games in 10 years and has has 3 different HCs over that time. well, my first step would be to find out what I thought was the cause of the failure. It might not be weight room related (but I have a hunch it is) Watch film daily in the offseason, SHOWING THE KIDS BLUNTLY why they failed. It can be somewhat easy to be very blunt here, because the kids have the "escape valve" of the fact that it was the previous coaches bad coaching that allowed their bad play. As someone else mentioned, some teams work hard. Some teams think they work hard. I remember once that a group I had coached (in junior high 4 years previous) at one school was participating in a track meet at the high school I (at the time) was currently coaching. Those guys were setting up their team area while the football team was completing a normal Friday offseason workout. My ex players were talking to me after the workout, and asked "what did those guys to get all that punish work"....My reply was that it was just a light conditioning day for us. Their jaws hit the ground. They thought they worked hard. We worked hard. (School record for wins that year). They thought they were strong (a few benches close to 300). We WERE strong (I didn't have a DB starter who couldn't power clean 260lbs) |
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Post by coachcb on Feb 24, 2009 19:35:51 GMT -6
You guys don't have to sell me the merits of off season training.
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Post by touchdowng on Feb 24, 2009 19:56:12 GMT -6
Coach
Enthusiasm is contagious. Is yours worth catching?
The way you package and sell the goods has much to do with how the consumer is going to consume.
I hear you saying that you don't want to do the same thing the predecessors have done.
Let's face it, FB (when done correctly) is nothing but hard work and you have to find ways to package it to be kid friendly. Kids want to have fun and they want to be challenged without taking any of their dignity from them.
Find ways to recognize hard work and authentic improvement. If it's the real thing (your program) it won't happen overnight. It's going to take some baby steps, some leaps and some setbacks but your enthusiasm cannot waiver or the players will smell it and believe "this is just like before."
Sell your vision and sell yourself and stick to your plan and find ways to demonstrate to your players that their efforts matter and their efforts are being rewarded with improvements.
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Post by coachcb on Feb 25, 2009 6:13:30 GMT -6
Coach Enthusiasm is contagious. Is yours worth catching? The way you package and sell the goods has much to do with how the consumer is going to consume. I hear you saying that you don't want to do the same thing the predecessors have done. Let's face it, FB (when done correctly) is nothing but hard work and you have to find ways to package it to be kid friendly. Kids want to have fun and they want to be challenged without taking any of their dignity from them. Find ways to recognize hard work and authentic improvement. If it's the real thing (your program) it won't happen overnight. It's going to take some baby steps, some leaps and some setbacks but your enthusiasm cannot waiver or the players will smell it and believe "this is just like before." Sell your vision and sell yourself and stick to your plan and find ways to demonstrate to your players that their efforts matter and their efforts are being rewarded with improvements. Thank you, this is what I was lookin for. |
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coachgeorge51
Sophomore Member
Cliches and mottos is mindless verbal nonsense.
Posts: 151
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Post by coachgeorge51 on Feb 27, 2009 12:13:28 GMT -6
Yea, the word "sell" is the problem here. You just have to lay it on the line, make them lift or cut them. There should be no "hey, you can come and go as you please, its o.k." That will kill your program as you work to get it winning.
Understand that the "sell" takes three - four years. It is a process and winning will result from the process of your plan. stick to it, don't give in to the losers and quitters, and lastly, have a plan for how you are going to deal with kids and adults who won't subscribe to your vision for the football program.
The kids will cut themselves free, but the adults will kill ya. Get rid of the adult quitters ASAP because they will be your biggest concern - you can't "sell" it on them - they will either be in or out.
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