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Post by spos21ram on Feb 7, 2008 13:27:51 GMT -6
I'll ask the question first since this could be hard to explain what I'm getting at.
Have any of you coaches had a false sense of success due to playing in a very weak conference, then once you get to the playoffs or play a non-league game against a team with a worse record, but is superior in talent and you get beat year in and year out, then fans, parents, AD, whoever, are wondering what the heck happened. And are asking why you keep choking?
There is also an opposite side to this. Have any of you played in a very talented conference and year in and year out are competitive, finishing around .500 every year but just cant get over the hump? Parents and fans can also get on you for this eventhough you are truely out matched most of the time. And when you play non-conference games you blow teams out.
It seems to me that alot of people just cannot grasp this. If you're losing to teams that are not as talented as you then thats a different stroy but that's not what I'm talking about here.
I havnt' really though about this until the past two years from coaching girls basketball. We play in an extremely tough conference and have been sneaking in the playoffs barely, but once we get there, we always go far and really blow out the higher seeds from other conferences.
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Post by coachcalande on Feb 7, 2008 13:32:47 GMT -6
The average fan does not grasp the idea of the size of the school you are playing vs the size of school you are etc.
I know I never did growing up...it was just a game that you either win or lose, the size of the school didnt matter. Im sure the avg parent doesnt have a clue if your league is full of weak schools.
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Post by spos21ram on Feb 7, 2008 13:37:31 GMT -6
I have a good example of this. I work with a woman who's son is on a middle school football team in a different town. Their conference is probably the weakest around. They were somthing like 6-0 then played a non league game against they're rival from the neighboring town that plays in a different conference. Well this other school was 1-5, but was from a much bigger school and played big schools. Well the 1-5 team won something like 40-7 and the mother was telling me "o wow we played so bad, we never play like that. I can't beleive we lost to a 1 win team." I tried to explain to her that just because they have only won 1 game that they are a much bigger school and eventhough they have just 1 win, they just have more talent.
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Post by ajreaper on Feb 7, 2008 14:28:58 GMT -6
LOL, it's like when you play terrrible but manage to pull it out and parents are telling you what a great job you did- except praise even when it's not deserved because you'll get the blame when it's undeserved.
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Post by coachcalande on Feb 7, 2008 17:10:49 GMT -6
You cannot listen to parents...this job requires a thick skin. Parents are "agents" for their kids and thats it.
my lesson was learned when a parent from the superstar loaded pee wee team bragged about their team and how "they look just like the pros, they have over 100 plays"...but no blocking rules or schemes of course.
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Post by coachorr on Feb 7, 2008 22:15:37 GMT -6
We had a coach get run out because he went 0-16. But they play three schools that are up a division and and the one school who is one division lower is like 10 kids away from being 4A as well and took state two of the last three years.
0-16 is bad, but the kids in this school are premadonnas and love playing all the noncontact sports and do not lift weights. I don't think there is a kid in the program who benches 250 or squats 300.
The last 8 games included opponents who were successful. Two teams were state championship winners at the 3a and 4a level. One team finished in the quarter-finals in the 5a and one in the semis in the 5a. Two of their opponents in the conference split with eachother and the winner went on to the quarterfinals.
So, yeah. The guy should have won at least one, but he wasn't playing any weak teams. Our 5A team was the weakest, but then again, we are 5A and the year before we were 8-2 and finished in the quarter finals.
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Post by realdawg on Feb 8, 2008 6:17:34 GMT -6
We are kinda on both ends of the spectrum at the same time-we play a tough Nonconference schedule-last 2 years we started out 1-3. (3 of the 4 teams we played were a classification bigger than us) However, with the exception of one team, our league is very weak, and we have beaten all of those teams the past 3 years. My old coach always used to remind us-things are never as good as they seem, and they are never as bad as they seem.
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Post by fbdoc on Feb 8, 2008 7:22:27 GMT -6
This is a familiar story. Since being reclassified 4 years ago, we are the 2nd smallest (enrollment) school in the state with 3 of the top 10 enrollment schools as District opponents. This year we picked up a school from the class above that was dropping down - still has almost double our enrollment. For the most part our admin. and parents DO get it. We win most of our non-district games and we've been fortunate to have beaten our rival 6 straight years - almost an identical school in enrollment, scope, and program. spos21ram - If that's your situatiuon hang in there.
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Post by coachnichols on Feb 8, 2008 18:56:30 GMT -6
Have any of you coaches had a false sense of success due to playing in a very weak conference, then once you get to the playoffs or play a non-league game against a team with a worse record, but is superior in talent and you get beat year in and year out, then fans, parents, AD, whoever, are wondering what the heck happened. And are asking why you keep choking? Yes, I went through this at the last decent school I was at. We played in a bad division of a good league. Our talent was above average and our division teams sucked for the most part. We would beat them and then get to our 3 district games at the end of the season of which you need at least 2 wins to go to the playoffs. Problem was, the teams in our district were from another league that had more talent (i.e. SPEED!!!!) than we did. It was a battle every time even though they were coached poorly. The only answer we had was to try to schedule a tougher team for our non-league game to get us ready for the speed. AD never got it done though. I think they (my old school) played some piss poor small town school and got beat anyways. |
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Post by matt5054 on Feb 8, 2008 21:09:07 GMT -6
We have dealt with this. I coached at a school for 7 years and we only missed making the playoffs one year even though we were 6-4. Three years ago I made a lateral move to another school because I had the chance to coach with my brother. We knew we were in for a challenge, but coming from winning schools we thought we could turn things around quickly even though we play in a very tough region and the school had only won 6 games in the previous 2 years. Well we went 0-10 our first year and fielded one of the worst teams I have ever seen (worst defeat was 60+ pts). The next year we finished 2-8, were 10 times better than we had been before but still struggled badly (gave up 29 pts a game). This past year we went 4-6 in one of, if not the toughest region in the state and were in every game. We were 3-0 vs. non region teams, all of whom made the playoffs. We set numerous offensive records for the school and only gave up 15 pts a game.
Even though we had improved a great deal in 3 years we still had parents angry because we hadn't made the playoffs. We also had parents mad because their kid didn't get a D-1 scholarship. I agree you have to have a thick skin and that parents are in large part clueless about coaching, recruiting, etc... I have come to the conclusion that all you can do is work your a-- off and not worry about what people say. It'd be like me telling a mechanic how to fix my car and I don't know anything about fixing a car.
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Post by spos21ram on Feb 8, 2008 22:39:07 GMT -6
This is a familiar story. Since being reclassified 4 years ago, we are the 2nd smallest (enrollment) school in the state with 3 of the top 10 enrollment schools as District opponents. This year we picked up a school from the class above that was dropping down - still has almost double our enrollment. For the most part our admin. and parents DO get it. We win most of our non-district games and we've been fortunate to have beaten our rival 6 straight years - almost an identical school in enrollment, scope, and program. spos21ram - If that's your situatiuon hang in there. No, it's not our situation...Well it's my situation in basketball but not football. It's just a pet peev of mine when people/coaches/fans brag about their accomplishments when anyone with a brain knows they are playing cupcakes. |
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