Small School Coaches

In Iowa JH and HS practicing together is a violation of the IHSAA rules.
In this situation I would do a 3 and a half to 4 hour deal.

1 and a half with JH, the rest with the HS. That situation would be one I would like, as I get to coach everyone in my program, so I would KNOW they are being coached correctly (my JH guys do a geat job so I do not have to wonder though)

Thanks for all the great suggestions guys.

blb, I'm more concerned with in season because the MS'ers aren't allowed to practice until school begins (NY has some screwy rules)

Nebraska has some odd rules too- especially when it comes to JH (4 game max). We have JH practice during the last period of the school day. (2:35-3:30) (not all schools do this- many smaller schools do- 2 of the 4 on our schedule do what we do, the other 2 go after school for JH. We've never beaten those schools in jh... but have never lost to them at the varsity level either). HS Practice goes from 3:50-5:50. I am the HC for both- the assistants are not the same guys (1 JH asst., 4 HS).

50 min. is not very long for JH- but I do not think I'd like to go more than 1:20 with them anyway.

For our JH, we usually go:
5 min. specialties
5 min warm up
15-20 min position groups (line/backs on O; DL/LB & DB)
15-20 min. team time (only one side of the ball usually)
5 min. change- get out.

I would think that even 20 min. more would be ideal for JH.

What is your game schedule like? We play all JH and JV games on Monday (doubleheaders), HS games are always on Friday (last game is Thurs., but JH/JV is over by then)- so we have HS practice (film & run) at 5:30 AM on Mondays. Our guys really like that (they do not like the early part- they do like being done right after school... feels like a day off)

Friday is JH pre-game and I am only occasionally available for that (never if we have an away game)- so it helps to have one guy there who doesn't have to go with the varsity. He can run them through depth for O, D and Specials, and supervise all the basic stuff (he's not really a "football guy", but can certainly handle pre-game).

In your situation... I'm not sure. Since it is not built in to the school day, I can see how you would hate to have the varsity waiting around to practice. Just off the top of my head- if you had JH right after school (say 3:00) and then HS at 4:00...

You could have 3 coaches at JH practice and 1 monitoring a 30 min. FB study hall. After the study hall, you could have any pre-practice meeting for 10-20 min.- then the guys could get ready for practice. You could then send one to the HS to start warm-ups and maybe conditioning or special teams... at that time JH would be done and you have your whole staff for practice.

It would be tough, but not impossible to do scheduling for something like this to work. I guess that looking at our situation, it is really nice because I can work with the JH and the HS players are accounted for by still being in class.

Thanks for the endorsement blb... I'm not sure that I know much... but I've covered a lot of ground in my career... I guess that's something.

Anyway, Moose18, obviously a lot depends on your schedule (school, games, etc.), but I highly recommend HS coaches be involved with the JH at small schools (if possible), even if it is on a alternating day basis. That being said, I'll be honest that 8 weeks of it (4 weeks before we play a game) is about all I can take- so if your guys (and you) are not used to the extra duty, try to break it up somehow (as per focus of your JH practice).

I'm the AD here too- all of our sports have at least the HC working with the JH (except Track, but I and the VB HC coach that and we were both track assistants until this year). It is not required of the Var. coaches, but I gave all the opportunity to do it and all of them jumped at the chance (the Track coach was unable due to his class schedule).

Whatever you do, if you have it organized well and get the routine established, it will not seem too difficult (first year we did it, it was tough, but we are used to it and really see the benefit now).