Developing the Total Program

We do a summer camp for the youth league, ages 5 all the way up through 8th grade. We make sure to get our gear and name on them, and get them excited to be T-Wolves at a young age.

We have done the coaching clinics in the past. Not all coaches agree to run our system, but if we can get them using some of our drills and terminology that's a win. The clinic thing was new to a lot of our youth guys, so they were way more willing to listen to us just based off the fact that we reached out to them. Youth nights are great. We have given them locker room access at half time so they can get a feel for what it is like.

I think it's important to get them around your coaches and players as you have alluded to. If you can get the youth leagues and middle schools running your system that's even better.

We actually have a coach on staff that works in one of our feeder schools, which also helps. He has a good relationship with those kids, and makes sure that kids that we should be getting end up in our program, and not at one of the other two high schools that they could go to.

Will be interested to see what other coaches are doing. I have an interview on Tuesday, and I'm sure this will come up!

The clinic for the youth coaches and a night to recognize the youth players (in our state, it can only be school affiliated teams) at halftime or during pregame is good. I like letting MS and even youth players into games for free if they wear their jerseys, but you might not be able to swing that.

If you host a big pregame "Meet the _______" event for the community like most people, see if you can get the lower levels involved. It's a nice boost for them. Introduce them on a stage one by one to the parents, or at least bring them up and tell the world how proud you are of them.

One cool idea I've seen in the past is to go to the elementary school and have "adopt a player" programs, where your varsity players will go in once a week and read to the elementary school kids. In return, the elementary school kids will have a picture of the player hanging in the room and will follow the progress of the team from week to week during the season. Start with Kindergarten and work this all the way through to build community support.

If you can swing a combined practice between the MS and the varsity, or between the MS and the youth levels, do it. You have to keep the kids sorted out so they don't make contact between the teams in drills, but they can all go through the same drills, get the same coaching, learn the expectations and culture of being a varsity player, etc.

One of the most successfully developed programs I've seen has a tailgate party on Fridays before the game where they invite all the youth players and coaches out and give them free hot dogs and sodas, along with tickets. Players hang out and eat their pregame meals with them, maybe throw a football around with the kids, etc.

Another cool thing, if you have multiple feeder schools, is to have them play each other on your home field, preferably for their season finale, then greet them after the game with a little ceremony to tell them they are no longer _mascot_#1_ and _mascot_#2_, but they are now all _your mascot_ and give 'em a t-shirt or something in honor of this milestone.

Don't discount the ability of former, or even current players to give back as coaches or referees in the youth leagues, either. Varsity players love to run chains at the youngster's games. Just make sure they're your best character kids so they set a good example.

Let me ask you something coach, and indulge me if this seems strange, but what brand of beer do you drink?  What was the last car you bought, and what is your favorite chain restaurant to eat at?

OK, this may be long winded, but I think that most coaches and AD's for that matter, miss the boat on truly building a program that can sustain itself over time.  

If you are a medium to small size school, I would venture a bet and say numbers in ALL of your sports are probably down.  I live in Ohio, and from 2008 to 2013 football participation is down 15% (55,392 to 45,573).  A more startling statistic is that Ohio has 22 fewer schools with a football program in 2014 than we did in 2010.  These numbers are also similar in basketball and baseball.  

So what does this have to do with the questions I asked you, marketing.  I bet you drink Bud because of the brand awareness that you had when you bought your first one.  Same with your car choice, and if you hadn't seen any advertising-marketing from BW's, chances are you may have never eaten there.  The advertising doesn't make you purchase the product, it just influences your choice when you buy.  

So what does this have to do with football and building a program?  This is my theory, but coaches these days set back and wait for kids to show up at the sign up meeting after school to see who is going to play....and then they will work the halls a little bit to try and drag a few more out, but if the kid didn't sign initially, he probably ain't playing.  And those same coaches will then gripe about how "kids today are so soft they (insert your gripe here)", or "kids today have too many choices, and they choose to be lazy or, specialize in a sport, blah blah blah".  God forbid you have a couple of down seasons, it's hard enough getting kids to come play on a winner, let alone a loser.  The problem with this model is that you are beating your head against the wall every year doing the same dang thing, asking where the players are.  

So what is the answer?  I think this falls on the AD as much if not more than the coaching staff, but you have to market your football program to the players (or potential players), the entire school staff, everyone who works at the school, all of the other sport coaches, the community the school is in and also have a strong social media/internet presence to get the word out about your school to alumni and people who may think of moving into your community.

Here is a few items of my plan that I would put in place if I were hired as a HC tomorrow at a school with struggling numbers:

-Every person person who has any contact with the program would have full gear and apparel to wear (t-shirts etc.).  I would make sure that every teacher, from K thru 12 would have a team T-shirt.  All of the bus drivers that drive to the games would have a coaches shirt.  Film crew, stat crew-everybody would look uniform and with the shirts it would improve brand awareness.

-Current youth coaches would also be brought into the program.  I would have them work the chains or get involved at the varsity practices in some manner.  They have to feel a sense of ownership to promote your brand.  They also would have full gear and apparel.

-Camps, and any thing else to get the youth involved.  Youth night at games, free admission to games, varsity working youth games...whatever it takes to start generating buzz at the youth level for your varsity program.

-Successful alumni who may be playing college ball getting back to school whenever possible to work with the players.  Let's them see a possible payoff to their hard work.

What we have to start doing is getting the kids, and parents and community exited about football at an early age so that when they get to 7th grade they can't wait to get under the lights on Fridays.  Football players are no different than customers needed for a business to survive, we have to sell them on the great things football can bring to their life.  We do a horrible job of this as a profession.  Start branding your program and building it from the ground up so that it will maintain and grow despite what is going on at other schools.  

Create an atmosphere that those around it will not be able to stay away from, one that kids will want to be a part of.  So when the kids start to make their choice to play a sport or not, they have been influenced by all of the positive things they see going on with your program and they want in.

Getting kids in the weight room starting in the winter their 6th grade year. Ours start playing organized ball in the 7th grade. Make it fun. It has to be fun or they won't come. They'll learn the lifts get stronger and more confident. If you get a few of them and they are having fun and making some progress all of the sudden you have some of their buddies and pretty soon you have a room full of sweaty 12 year olds. What's better for a kid that age than getting stronger and bigger muscles? This has been a big one for us. I cannot overemphasize the fun part. Through little competitions with push-ups, sit-ups, wall sits, 1 on 1 tug o war...whatever. It makes those little guys feel tough and that's cool to them. They also get a chance to get to know us coaches.

We did that also the last few years, and one thing that always drove me nuts was at the end of the season those guys would always say they couldn't believe how much fun football was.  We would also get the same response from the guys who came out their senior year.  Might be beneficial to have those guys go talk to the younger players.

My opinion on Jr high football gets me some strange looks, but again it is framed with the thought of building the HS program.  If you have decent numbers, you had better make sure EVERYBODY gets substantial playing time and gets on the field.  This might make it hard to always win games, but frankly it isn't very important to me that you have "power house" of a JR high team.  I have seen it were coaches kind of overlook a kid, he doesn't play much, and then when he gets to HS you loose him to soccer and he turns out to be a pretty good athlete.

Everything you do outside of the varsity program has got to be geared toward getting kids involved, having a good time, getting playing time and growing your numbers.

Lmao @ asking coaches to pitch in cash when they already give an incredible amount of time.

I don't teach but coach a rep team in Canada. I make a pretty good living and donating $100 to my team/club would be nothing but there is no way I'd consider such a request when I already give up more than 500 hours of time to my team and club.

Telling coaches to give up $100 from their own pocket. Man I've heard it all now lol

I give plenty. Nights, weekends, my summer. I pump money back into my classroom all of the time. When does it end?

Fundraisers raise money.

I think what Jlen makes sense. You have to create excitement about the program. All these suggestions are good, here is some of what we do

-We have 3 MS that feed us. One MS doesn't have a game field, so they come and use our turf practice field for home games. The other 2 we try to get their conference game on that field too. When we come off the other practice field, I make sure to tell my kids to go by and high five all the players while they are warming up. We also try to get the HC and some other coaches to visit a couple of games to be visible. CoachA makes a very good point about the post game speech about they all all now -school mascot- and be sure to point out that Billy will now be throwing TD passes to Jimmy, Steve will be chasing the QB along side Carl, etc... Never under estimate how important it is to recognize a kid by name.
-Youth league recognition game, it's a must, if you can get varsity players involved it's much better.
-Youth clinic, be sure to come up with a really good tshirt that emphasizes -school mascot-
-MS summer lifting. We bring in the kids to teach them good form in how to lift and how to train for speed. We also spend time with them learning to throw and catch, good stances, blocking (steps, no pads), coverages, etc..... This is a great time to get the coaches seen by the kids, but more importantly it is a chance to work with the coaches in the lower levels. It's a hidden coaches clinic.
-We go open car doors at the elementary schools on Thursday mornings during the season. Players wear their jerseys, kids LOVE to see the players lined up in front of the school. It's a chance to also teach players that they need to give something back. Even the scrubbeenies get treated like rock stars by the kids.
-Player mentors/reading buddies. Again, time to give back.
-Fund raise in the schools. If you sell cards, raffles, etc..... encourage the kids to show their faces, after all they are the face of the program.
-'Coaches of the Week' The kids pick and the teachers get a tshirt and get to go through our whole game day itinerary. This even happens on away games.
-We have the MS coaches pick players of the week and they get to do the same, but we only do this for home games.
-Everytime your town has a parade, festival, etc..... make sure the team shows up in mass.
-Teach your kids how to talk to media. Politicians fight tooth and nail to get face time in front of the camera/get in print. Use this as tool to make your program look good.
-Public relations department. Your school has one, so use it. Make sure you let the DO know EVERY thing that you do.
-Meet the -school mascot- Have a community event to show them the team this year.
-Have a community pep rally

Coach Culloty, yes the elementary schools do start a little before the HS. They are tardy about 740 and the HS is about 800. They don't get special permission to be late. Most parents are lined up waiting on the doors to open for drop offs. It usually is about for 15 minutes or so. It gives the kids incentive to be at school in a timely fashion. You can't catch them all, the bus kids don't get the same treatment since they come in a different way. But then again it's about being out front and having that 'face time'.

Jlen, in both cases we have done this our numbers were in good shape when most of this was implemented. I guess it is the chicken/egg argument. Some of this was program building, some was giving back. I will say that our numbers stayed up. If you're 2-8 with 24 kids you're trying to get a couple of extra kids that can make a difference on Friday night. When you're coming off a championship season, you're also trying to get some extra kids because you need a better scout team.

It all really comes down to the types of kids you're trying to keep. Sure you'll have kids that just want to wear a jersey, but to really make an impact you're trying to make the program more than just weight lifting, practices, and games. A lot of coaches talk about the program being a family. Is family just a place to sleep, eats some meals, and paying the bills? It's about involvement. The more you can do things to involve the kids in things that aren't related to the game, the more you make the game important. Plus you have to 'advertise'. You've got to remind people that you've got a team and also tell them that they'll be better off by being a part.

At all of our stops we have had pretty good success improving numbers. Current location small school (250 kids) our first year we had 53 kids playing from 7th through 12th grade this past year we had 84. Previous stop in bigger school (just shy of 1,000) we had 64 9-12 and 120 7-12 in year 4 our final year there we had 111 9-12 and 221 7-12. The procedures we have used have been pretty consistent and seems to lead to a fairly positive experience.

1. Our premise is kids in lower levels want two things, to be able to play and attention from their coach and peers. We make sure all kids who participated get an opportunity for meaningful playing time at the appropriate level we will maximize our teams splitting them pretty much anytime we get 30 kids.

2. We host a big pep rally each spring to engage kids and get them excited about summer camp and signing up to play.

3. Immediately after the sign-up we send out a mailing to the parents giving them all the information about summer camp start dates, our spring parent meeting, and welcoming their family notifying that their child has chosen to sign up to play football.

4. Summer camp is a big deal, we want a huge turnout we want nice gear we want a positive environment in which every kid has a blast last year we had 154 boys at our summer camp there is only about 350 boys in the entire district.

5. Weight room is all incentive based if they come we reward them if they don't we encourage them to but we try not to push to hard we want it to be their choice to want to improve themselves not a coach pushing them into it. Our 10-12th grade athletes generally have all but 1 or 2 kids who attend more then 75% of the total lifts and typically almost the entire Varsity is over 90% attendance.

6. Lower level coaches call and invite every boy out right before equipment handout trying to get a few more to give it a try.

7, Our coaches tend to be patient teachers we avoid hiring guys who are going to be loud just to be loud.

8. We try to make sure every kid has a role and purpose that has significance.

9. We try to create a culture that is built around brotherhood and selflessness not star players (this is good for numbers but not typically what the preceived start players parents will want this philosophy has gotten me fired).

10. We practice and compete hard but try to remain and appropriate balance between work, play, and rest. We are not all football all the time all year round even though my mind tends to be that way I believe most kids that is too much for them.