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Post by blb on May 17, 2011 11:34:51 GMT -6
davis, I think one thing you have to realistically take into consideration too is normal attrition.
By that I mean - how much time do you want your HS or Varsity coaches to put into kids who will never play for you?
Regardless of caliber of coaching, for a myriad of reasons that are outside your control, I'll bet that about half if not more of the kids who play as 7-8th graders don't play as Juniors or Seniors.
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Post by davishfc on May 17, 2011 13:23:16 GMT -6
If our kids had been with the varsity staff the entire seven days, I feel that the freshmen would have been "behind" where they ended up. A lot of coaches will say that the younger players need fundamentals and basic skills. By going separately we could provide those basics as they pertained to the 3-4 better. A pace and level more tailored to our kids. I can definitely see the argument for the more suitable pace for, in some cases, kids playing their first year of organized football. Having a practice separate from the high school would allow for more of that. Did you see the brainstormed practice template that I explained in an earlier post? Monday would be a day in which the entire coaching staff would invest time into the middle school. Once the high school kids came out, the middle school kids would leave and attention would be put toward the high school teams. So the middle school would be allowed a day per week that they could go at that their own pace. Tuesday would be more of a combined practice. During some of the segments, they would need to move more quickly and efficiently through drills and such. I'm sure this would be bit of a culture shock for them but I believe it would benefit them. Wednesday game and Thursday film with maybe a walk through afterwards. Still hashing out the details for this plan but tentatively this is what it looks.
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Post by davishfc on May 22, 2011 21:20:44 GMT -6
Just an update on this topic. We met as a staff last week and discussed the possibility of blending the coaching staffs and conducting combined practice of our program 7-12. Monday the majority of the high school staff would be out on the field early working with the middle school while the high school would be inside watching film.
Tuesday would be a truly combined practice from start to finish. Wednesday the middle school would have a game while the high school teams practiced. Thursday there would be a JV game, Varsity pre-game, and the middle school would come in and watch film.
We devised a plan for the very complex Tuesday practice. Everyone felt comfortable with it and were actually enthused about what the plan could do for our program. I mean this was an overwhelmingly supported plan by the staff. The plan itself involved half of the high school staff coaching the middle school offense during the high school special teams period. Once that concluded, the entire program would participate in the defensive segments of practice. Our staff was completely on board with this plan.
After our staff meeting, I went home and really thought hard about the possible negative implications of a combined practice schedule on our high school teams, particularly the varsity. Up until that point, I really didn't consult my gut which actually surprised me because I normally will do that first in situation like this.
The time crunch we were in to have a tentative plan by our parent meeting this Thursday put my immediate focus on the development of a plan. The plan didn't have to exactly resemble what we planned to do in the fall. But I wanted to know that the concept was something we believed we could do before I unveiled it at the parent meeting.
Shortly after our staff meeting, I made the executive decision that we would go through with a modified plan. We would keep the Monday and Thursday aspects of the plan. However, Tuesday would be a separate day for the middle school with the two coaches that would go with them on game day. The high school staffs focus would be on preparing the JV and Varsity. I believe this move gives us some of the benefits of the original plan without the risk of sacrificing the high school teams.
I thought a lot about our staff's experience and the state of our program. Inexperienced coaches would have been asked to perform tasks that would have been quite challenging for them to be successful. I thought a year of coaching under their belt would help to possibly institute our original plan next year.
Also, last year at the Varsity level, we lost a game by 2 points and a game by 6 points. Had we won those two games, we would've made the playoffs. That would have been a huge step for our program because it would have only been the third playoff team in school history. We have another very realistic opportunity to make a run at that goal this season. We probably don't have another opportunity for couple years after that. I mean we'll be competitive but post-season berths for the next couple Varsity teams we'll have is probably not going to happen.
When push came to shove, I didn't want to set our coaching staff up for failure which would obviously set our kids up for failure. I also didn't want our program to miss a great opportunity for our Varsity because we jumped into something completely new in the same year. Coaches, thank you for the suggestions and opinions regarding this plan. Having a productive discussion about the pros and cons made the decision much easier than it could have been. As always, I really appreciate the help everyone.
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