A frustrated coach

I agree. You don't get paid enough to put up with turds. If enough boys aren't interested in playing and following the rules, cancel the season.

YKNOW, when it comes right down to it, failing to lift weights is a huge safety risk factor. You can certainly establish a minimum criteria for "qualifying" for football...maybe its

"attend 85% of workouts"
" lift x amount of wt"


perhaps you could use a point system...need so many points to get your pads...

Sorry to hear this - I know what you're going through and how hard it is to build a program from scratch. Where are you at, coach? I'm still looking to fill a couple of positions at our South Florida location. English, History, Science, and Math. PM if you're interested.

Thanks for the encouragement coaches. Coache67, it isnt that easy. If I walk down the hallway, there are only about 15 boys in the school. We have a winning tradition here. Last year that got rid of quite a few boys by expelling them or not allowing them back and others just flat out left the school. We just don't have the numbers to go down the hall and start recruiting kid and getting them excited. The kids who come out everyday are dedicated and will left etc even with only 4 guys out there. Singlewing, it's hard to cancel the season because the administration is so steadfast about having football. I literally had to exaust every option last season before I could cancel the season. I mean I had to call 6 man teams and try and contact our league to get into a six man district even though the kids here didnt want to play 6 man. It's rough. We have kids who say well Im going to play next year but I can't come out now. Im going to call a meeting for tomorrow during lunch and I may get out of character and yell and scream! This makes me mad as you know what!!!

Have you contacted parents- had a meeting passed along to them what your expectations are? Kids do alot less skipping out when mom and dad know they were supposed to be at practice. If you've not involved the parents I'd start there first.

coachmathis,

We have some similarities with you here. We are very small- we moved down from 11 man to 8 man a few years ago... and there was some resistance. We had been a powerhouse in the small 11 man class... and opted up for several years, but started to lose more students in what was probably a similar situation to yours.

In 2003 we had 19 boys in the HS- 15 out for football and two had season ending injuries before we played a game (one was a starting DII center as a freshman last year, the other was HM all-state as a senior... so they were good players who we sorely missed). So we played the whole year with 13. Though we had our worst season in 20 years record wise (7-4... not bad), I was very happy with our work ethic and commitment... and was happy with the results.

Some stuff we did (still do) that helped a lot:
1. We do everything we can to make our program "Big-Time". I look at what big schools do (I coached 5A for 6 years... that experience gave me some good insight on this). In 03 we got new travel bags, and some other new stuff. We painted the locker room and added some things in there. Stuff like Gatorade after every practice, being well fed on road trips/ team dinners for home games, game socks, nameplates on lockers... little stuff I do not care about but kids like- so we do it.

2. We too have the 6'2 240# senior as the starting fullback backed up by the 5'5 130# freshman. The senior could spend all summer drinking whisky and watching TV, the freshman could work his butt off... come first day, the senior would still be vastly superior.

Our guys (so far) have not taken advantage of the situation because:
a. Tradition is very important. We are going for 20 consecutive playoff years, 5 state championship games. Our older guys feel a lot of responsibility and pressure to live up to the past. We are lucky in that respect... you can not really "create" that atmosphere immediately
b. We set player goals along with team goals. With the seniors, they have goals and plans to achieve goals... I have copies of all of this (in a notebook AND on the wall in the wt. room), and if they do not keep up with their plan, I change their goals. They get mad and embarrassed if I change their goals (haven't had to do that in a while) We also have a meeting where we generate team goals and action plans. If the goals and plans are player driven, enforcing the plan just became a lot easier.
c. Senior leadership meetings (6 week program). At the end seniors set the team rules (which I guide). It is their team (the coaches program, but the player's team), and they are responsible for helping motivate they younger guys. If seniors won't do it, I'll look to juniors, etc.
d. I also spend a lot of time with the freshmen about how they need to "grow up in a hurry" and be ready to play. At our levels, we have to depend on freshmen and the emphasis is on focus and responsibility

3. We do a lot of things to keep it fun. Some examples:
a. During summer seniors choose conditioning on Wednesday. We might play dodgeball, go swimming... whatever. I have a tough time getting rid of guys on that day.
b. We do a 5 mile (formerly 8) drive... where we basically run offensive plays that cover 5 miles total. (takes about 4 hours). After- we BBQ and they play paintball.
c. We have "bowling night"- they bowl and eat pizza. Not really football related, but great for unity and gets the guys around each other.

It is important that they like to be around the football team. We work hard at conditioning- it's not just "fun time", but the social aspects are important too. Bulldogoption is right- most of us were in the upper 10%. I know I wasn't always (not until midway through my junior year in HS). We have had 100% of our team make 80% of the conditioning days for at least 9 years (1997 or 98 was the last time we had someone miss 80%). I know that tradition is what upholds that mark, but the fact that the guys actually like coming in is just as important.


4. We make things competitive
Dodgeball games, swimming races bowling are all one group vs. another. We might have backs vs. line, JR/SR vs. FR/SO, or another breakdown. Our guys (most kids) want to win at anything, and will develop competitiveness. We also do weightlifting (Olympic) or powerlifting meets where teams compete. Winners get a prize (25 cent suckers and a certificate). That later translates in to the season in drills, scrimmage situations, etc.

I learned a long time ago that players sometimes listen to other players more than coaches. bulldog's 10-80-10 principle is right on... so I always work on that upper 10, and let them lead the remaining 90.

In our spring drills, anyone who hit a bag on the agile bag drills had 10 pushups for each bag hit. I never said a thing about that- the seniors made that edict on the first day and we did it all spring. There were no complaints from the younger guys- because they don't want to anger the seniors. Positive peer pressure goes a long way... find a few (or one) guy who is a leader and get all you can out of him and his influence.

I also think that where you are at right now, maybe the "fun stuff" and "team building" is the best starting point. Once the guys genuinely like being around each other, then they will work hard for each other and will start to learn the responsibility that comes with not wanting to let teammates down. That's harder to get if they are coming in because they "have to". if nothing else, our guys always "want to" come in.

I don't have all the answers... I'm not sure I even have any good ones. But we have had a lot of success over the years and after reading your post, I started to think of "why"... and this is what I came up with... so I hope something amidst my rambling can help.

Best of luck.