25 kids you can trust or 35 with some cancer athletic kids

See problem is we play teams with over 50.

I think the honest answer is somewhere in the middle. I think you need to stick to your guns and try to keep as many kids that buy in around. I also think that if you boot off a couple of the cancers you will find that some of the kids you thought were cancerous will start to buy into the program. I find that there are three types that coaches think are cancerous: kids that are just turds and will not change, kids that are turds because there buddies are turds and they want to be cool, and kids that are testing the boundries.

In the end you might end up with 30 kids willing to do the things that you ask of them, which is better than 25.

Most of the time in our program, they are gone before they are juniors. I will say that our strength coach is a bad a$$, and has no mercy for d bags. He does stuff I wouldn't dream of because I don't want the potential headache. The kids love him though.

Two separate man child type kids a few years apart decide to skip weights for an extended period of time. One kid thinks he is tony Montana and the other just likes to pop pills. While they are gone, they both get in trouble, the first for fighting and the other drinking. The strength coach loses his mind when they show up to conditioning and loads up bars with 225 and makes everyone except the slapd*ck walk three miles around the track with it over their heads in groups of six. It took three hours, some of the parents are waiting to pick up their kid, also watching; kids are puking everywhere.

I was uncomfortable with it at first as I'm the only other coach there, but after the kids stopped complaining, worked together and just embraced the suckiness of it, it was a pretty good team building activity. The first kid quit, and transferred and was a mediocre player. The second kid had perfect attendance and no drug related incidents for two years and became all state for us. Our attendance to workouts is incredible now, and the kids hold each other accountable for getting to team events.

Not necessarily my style but it got rid of the cancer real quick. I can pinpoint those moments as when our program to a step in the right direction. The kids actually ask to do stuff like that at the end of summer as sort of a strength and conditioning graduation.

To answer your last question about whether you can win without athletes: No but you will feel better and you can build your program so that eventually you will have athletes who buy in. 

That said, I do think that the term "cancer" is overused. In all of my years as a [layer and a coach I've never been a part of a team where I liked everybody. There are always a couple of guys who are selfish. There are always a couple who will be lazy. If their behavior is detrimental to the team either fix their behavior or get rid of them. 

If you don't like their attitude but they do what you want the next question is, is their attitude spreading? If so, get rid of them. If not, roll your eyes and just keep coaching. Don't expect to like them all. 

You say that guys always phok you in weeks 8-10. Are these the same guys? Have these specific guys done it to you before? How?