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Post by s73 on Jun 23, 2016 12:13:28 GMT -6
I'm writing this not b/c I'm angry, more or less I actually kind of find it humorous and just believing that I cannot be the only coach here that this happens to.
Here's what I'm talking about. We are in summer camp. Monday Tuesday we had very good practices. Looked sharp, buttoned up whatever you want to call it. Very few mistakes, kids were on top of things, etc.
We take Wednesdays off to break up the week and then we reconvene on Thursdays & Fridays. Well, again had very good days M/T then we come back today & it's like the biggest $hit show in FB history. Granted we put some new stuff in so I expected some struggle with it but today was exceptionally bad.
But it brings me to a bigger point, it seems like anytime we string together a couple of good days we almost always follow it up with a really bad one. For over 20 years now I have seen this happen.
Just curious how many of you experience this same kind of trend?
Thanks.
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Post by rsmith627 on Jun 23, 2016 12:48:45 GMT -6
Man, following up good days with awful days is almost a given for us as well.
Coaches, how do you overcome this, or at least minimize it?
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Post by natenator on Jun 23, 2016 12:59:51 GMT -6
My primary coaching consists of coaching summer travel football in Canada. We are usually a weaker team talent wise compared to some of the other teams we face which means we typically finish with an even record and may pull out the odd playoff win here or there.
I've been repeatedly amazed that we have p!ss poor practice attendance and effort after a big game where we either won or came very close against a team we likely should have been blown out against. It never fails.
Two weeks ago we were down 14-0 at half and came back to win 23-14 in very dominate fashion playing our best football to that point and the next practice we had 30 of 54 kids show up. I should no longer be stunned but it never fails to exasperate me.
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Post by funkfriss on Jun 23, 2016 13:06:35 GMT -6
I'm writing this not b/c I'm angry, more or less I actually kind of find it humorous and just believing that I cannot be the only coach here that this happens to. Here's what I'm talking about. We are in summer camp. Monday Tuesday we had very good practices. Looked sharp, buttoned up whatever you want to call it. Very few mistakes, kids were on top of things, etc. We take Wednesdays off to break up the week and then we reconvene on Thursdays & Fridays. Well, again had very good days M/T then we come back today & it's like the biggest $hit show in FB history. Granted we put some new stuff in so I expected some struggle with it but today was exceptionally bad. But it brings me to a bigger point, it seems like anytime we string together a couple of good days we almost always follow it up with a really bad one. For over 20 years now I have seen this happen. Just curious how many of you experience this same kind of trend? Thanks. Isn't this one of Murphy's laws?
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Post by jrk5150 on Jun 23, 2016 13:07:42 GMT -6
Sounds like a really good topic for a PhD dissertation to me. Anyone working towards one? :-)
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Post by chi5hi on Jun 23, 2016 14:07:44 GMT -6
Its guaranteed to happen. I think it's in the Bible somewhere...right after it says that God rested on the 7th day so he could watch the game.
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Post by carookie on Jun 23, 2016 14:38:24 GMT -6
Its just the law of averages and mean regression. You stated that your first four practices were "very good" which I interpret to mean better than average (average being what you would normally expect); if this is the case, wouldn't it make sense that you would eventually have to have a practice that is bad (less than what you would expect)?
Otherwise your expectations would have been higher coming into camp, and those "very good" practices would have just been practices that were what you expected, and you most likely wouldn't have noticed.
I used to coach with a guy who felt that you couldn't compliment kids too much for good practices because they would then have bad practices. Moreover he felt that if he was verbally abusive after bad practices it would benefit the team and get them back on track; he used anecdotal evidence similar to your situation to support his claim.
I told him I disagreed but he stuck to his guns; eventually I created a demonstation to show him how I felt he was wrong. I took out a six sided dice, and told him I wanted this dice to consistently roll a higher number (the higher the number the better). Every time I rolled a 1 or 2 I yelled at it for being bad, if I rolled a 5 or 6 I complimented it for being high. Obviously, the times I rolled low tended to mean regress and be higher the following roll; conversely that number went down following a high roll. Did that indicate my yelling or complimenting impacted the next roll? No of course not.
So what was the point of that long winded recounting? That we have a good grasp of what our team will be, sometimes they are a little better than that, sometimes a little worse. As coaches, we try to coach them up to be the best they can be (I am in no way writing not to stop driving and coaching them); but in the end you have an expectation of where they should be (that 3 or 4 roll- and don't say you expect them to be a 6 every time because it is a relative statement, wherever you expect them to be is 3 or 4). Sometimes they will do better, sometimes worse. If they had a lot of "very good" practices then either your expectations were too low or they will mean regress.
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Post by s73 on Jun 23, 2016 16:21:06 GMT -6
Its guaranteed to happen. I think it's in the Bible somewhere...right after it says that God rested on the 7th day so he could watch the game. Yeah, I think you're right coach. I think I saw it in Genesis. I believe it goes something like this: On the 1st day God said thou shalt practice well. On the 2nd day God said thou shalt practice well & thou youngest coach on thy staff shall proclaim, " this is the greatest team ever & nothing can stop us. We shall be bountiful beyond measure in the win column". On the 3rd day, God said practice shall sucketh......and practice did sucketh! And thy elder coaches silently fantasized giving thy youngest coach a blanket party while thy youngest coach quietly excused thyself from practice a tad early. Amen.
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Post by s73 on Jun 23, 2016 16:25:30 GMT -6
Its just the law of averages and mean regression. You stated that your first four practices were "very good" which I interpret to mean better than average (average being what you would normally expect); if this is the case, wouldn't it make sense that you would eventually have to have a practice that is bad (less than what you would expect)? Otherwise your expectations would have been higher coming into camp, and those "very good" practices would have just been practices that were what you expected, and you most likely wouldn't have noticed. I used to coach with a guy who felt that you couldn't compliment kids too much for good practices because they would then have bad practices. Moreover he felt that if he was verbally abusive after bad practices it would benefit the team and get them back on track; he used anecdotal evidence similar to your situation to support his claim. I told him I disagreed but he stuck to his guns; eventually I created a demonstation to show him how I felt he was wrong. I took out a six sided dice, and told him I wanted this dice to consistently roll a higher number (the higher the number the better). Every time I rolled a 1 or 2 I yelled at it for being bad, if I rolled a 5 or 6 I complimented it for being high. Obviously, the times I rolled low tended to mean regress and be higher the following roll; conversely that number went down following a high roll. Did that indicate my yelling or complimenting impacted the next roll? No of course not. So what was the point of that long winded recounting? That we have a good grasp of what our team will be, sometimes they are a little better than that, sometimes a little worse. As coaches, we try to coach them up to be the best they can be (I am in no way writing not to stop driving and coaching them); but in the end you have an expectation of where they should be (that 3 or 4 roll- and don't say you expect them to be a 6 every time because it is a relative statement, wherever you expect them to be is 3 or 4). Sometimes they will do better, sometimes worse. If they had a lot of "very good" practices then either your expectations were too low or they will mean regress. Coach, actually I said it was a total $hit show, not a bad practice. There is a difference (to me anyway). As for the dice demo? Stay off the drugs son. Sorry man, but that's just weird.
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Post by freezeoption on Jun 23, 2016 17:01:15 GMT -6
keep working their tail, but there kids, not an excuse, but your going to have practices that may be feces, the idea is to keep plugging away, now if you want to see a Shiite show watch earnest goes to camp
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Post by realdawg on Jun 23, 2016 17:57:33 GMT -6
Its never as good as it seems, its never as bad as it seems, never get too high, never get too low. Just keep chopping wood.
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Post by coachwoodall on Jun 23, 2016 18:04:17 GMT -6
Its guaranteed to happen. I think it's in the Bible somewhere...right after it says that God rested on the 7th day so he could watch the game. Yeah, I think you're right coach. I think I saw it in Genesis. I believe it goes something like this: On the 1st day God said thou shalt practice well. On the 2nd day God said thou shalt practice well & thou youngest coach on thy staff shall proclaim, " this is the greatest team ever & nothing can stop us. We shall be bountiful beyond measure in the win column". On the 3rd day, God said practice shall sucketh......and practice did sucketh! And thy elder coaches silently fantasized giving thy youngest coach a blanket party while thy youngest coach quietly excused thyself from practice a tad early. Amen. Monty Python fan, right?
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Post by coachwoodall on Jun 23, 2016 18:16:56 GMT -6
It's about creating a mentality of "A Monday is a Monday", etc.... Every day you go chop wood. I say it a million times, if you give me 3 hours to chop a tree, I'll spend 2 hours sharpening my axe.
Today we are here to do work. Yesterday doesn't matter, I'm not worried about saving for tomorrow.
You might have a 'starting line'. When the kids cross XXXXX, they have their chin straps on, cleas laced, shoulder pads tight, gloves on, etc..... and they are going to work.
Yeah, I'm not knocking the 'law of averages. ....' response's, but Hades I'm not trying to coach a team to be average. Set the bar high and demand that the kid reach for the bar. There's nothing wrong with expectin perfection.
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Post by **** on Jun 23, 2016 18:26:09 GMT -6
It happens from time to time for us.
Usually the next day I just take more Spark or actually drink pre work out. Then I'm hyped up like a MOFO and the kids feed off the energy.
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Post by 44dlcoach on Jun 23, 2016 18:50:49 GMT -6
This is probably not true but it seems like it happens a lot where I thought we had a great week of practice and then we struggled in the game, and vice versa where I though we were walking into an ass kicking and we played really well.
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Post by coachwoodall on Jun 23, 2016 19:58:33 GMT -6
I think a lot of it is how you read your team. How do they respond after a tough workout? How do they respond after a tough game? How do they respond after an easy game? How do they respond after a hot long practice? You might be able to head that off by reading how they leave the after practice huddle.
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Post by s73 on Jun 23, 2016 20:42:28 GMT -6
Yeah, I think you're right coach. I think I saw it in Genesis. I believe it goes something like this: On the 1st day God said thou shalt practice well. On the 2nd day God said thou shalt practice well & thou youngest coach on thy staff shall proclaim, " this is the greatest team ever & nothing can stop us. We shall be bountiful beyond measure in the win column". On the 3rd day, God said practice shall sucketh......and practice did sucketh! And thy elder coaches silently fantasized giving thy youngest coach a blanket party while thy youngest coach quietly excused thyself from practice a tad early. Amen. Monty Python fan, right? Actually no. Just trying not to take myself & the situation too seriously. It is June after all.
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Post by Defcord on Jun 24, 2016 8:18:01 GMT -6
I wonder if we were observed as coaches if you would find we do the same thing. And if so are we some of the cause for the bad practice days. I have never really thought about it but there has been a few times when kids have asked "coach are you ok today." I think it's hard to figure out why bad practices occur for sure. I know for us anytime something new goes in scheme wise or drill wise I have to remind myself to not go crazy if it doesn't go smoothly so i don't go nuts.
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Post by fantom on Jun 24, 2016 9:01:27 GMT -6
I wonder if we were observed as coaches if you would find we do the same thing. And if so are we some of the cause for the bad practice days. I have never really thought about it but there has been a few times when kids have asked "coach are you ok today." I think it's hard to figure out why bad practices occur for sure. I know for us anytime something new goes in scheme wise or drill wise I have to remind myself to not go crazy if it doesn't go smoothly so i don't go nuts. I think that there's something to be said about bad practices being caused somewhat by a bad day by one or more coach. Maybe you've put in something new and they didn't really understand it even though they thought that they clearly did when it was discussed. Maybe they just had a bad day at work or at home. Of course, if that happens too often maybe coaching isn't for that guy. Over the years I've found that, although random bad days can pop up, some are predictable. Any change in schedule risks a bad practice. The first day back to school has almost always been tough. A half-day of school or a day off can throw things off. A sudden, drastic change of weather seems to mess things up. Something that removes a few key players-injuries, disciplinary problems, a field trip- puts the whole team off kilter. These problems can be magnified with off-season practices. You've thrown a lot of things at them, it's hot, some kids may be gone for a combine, church camp, whatever plus they have other things on their mind. And they're kids. Who knows what the hell a 16 year old is thinking from day to day.
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Post by **** on Jun 24, 2016 9:05:34 GMT -6
I wonder if we were observed as coaches if you would find we do the same thing. And if so are we some of the cause for the bad practice days. I have never really thought about it but there has been a few times when kids have asked "coach are you ok today." I think it's hard to figure out why bad practices occur for sure. I know for us anytime something new goes in scheme wise or drill wise I have to remind myself to not go crazy if it doesn't go smoothly so i don't go nuts. We as coaches are partially to blame. Kids read and understand body language better than we think. If I am not foaming at the mouth to go out to practice, my kids won't be either. Sometimes you gotta fake it till you make it. If I didn't explain something well enough to a kid it's my fault. I should have explained it a different way so they did understand. If a coach is doing a drill the wrong way, it's probably my fault because I didn't explain it correctly. Every time we put on screamo, death metal music in the weight room it is a wasted day. Kids phuking hate it but our strength coach thinks you gotta listen to that chit when you do squats! I have slowly convinced him over the last 2.5 years that just because it works for you, doesn't mean it works for the kids. If we don't play rap or rock in the weight room we might as well not even come because the energy and work ethic is not there. fantom said the other half of what I wanted to say. HS kids are unpredictable and you don't always know what is going on outside of school.
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Post by blb on Jun 24, 2016 9:08:34 GMT -6
"Look, men, I understand we're going to have bad practices. But it's not going to be today.
"We're going to get two good hours in, even if it takes us six!"
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Post by fantom on Jun 24, 2016 9:27:53 GMT -6
"Look, men, I understand we're going to have bad practices. But it's not going to be today. "We're going to get two good hours in, even if it takes us six!" "I know it's hot today. We live in the south. It gets hot here. Don't expect to be dry again until Halloween".
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Post by coachwoodall on Jun 24, 2016 12:59:18 GMT -6
It's about creating a mentality of "A Monday is a Monday", etc.... Every day you go chop wood. I say it a million times, if you give me 3 hours to chop a tree, I'll spend 2 hours sharpening my axe. Today we are here to do work. Yesterday doesn't matter, I'm not worried about saving for tomorrow. You might have a 'starting line'. When the kids cross XXXXX, they have their chin straps on, cleas laced, shoulder pads tight, gloves on, etc..... and they are going to work. Yeah, I'm not knocking the 'law of averages. ....' response's, but Hades I'm not trying to coach a team to be average. Set the bar high and demand that the kid reach for the bar. There's nothing wrong with expectin perfection. as I fill a response with typos..... sorry, long day at the office
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Post by utchuckd on Jun 25, 2016 6:08:03 GMT -6
now if you want to see a Shiite show watch earnest goes to camp Respectfully disagree. EGTC is by far the superior film in the Ernest oeuvre.
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Post by freezeoption on Jun 25, 2016 12:18:23 GMT -6
I would say all of the Earnest movies sucked, but that is me. I had to apologize to my date for taking her to such a bad movie. Now, the movie we went to the next week was much better, Back to School.
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Post by dblwngr on Jun 25, 2016 12:37:35 GMT -6
This is probably not true but it seems like it happens a lot where I thought we had a great week of practice and then we struggled in the game, and vice versa where I though we were walking into an ass kicking and we played really well. Glad Im not the only one that has this baffling experience on a regular basis! Anymore, I almost worry if we dont have a sub-par week. It's a mystery that falls in line with the pyramids, Bermuda triangle and bigfoot.
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Post by tango on Jun 25, 2016 13:33:11 GMT -6
1. 10 degrees can change practice big time. 2. Work load can influence practice. 3. Bored with it. 4. Energy of leaders can greatly change practice. IMHO
I coached with a basketball coach that was very successful and brutal to his players. He knew himself better than anyone. He had built in clap sessions to calm himself down and lift practice energy up. If they had a bad practice, he was unreal on them. I would ask how was practice and he would always say it will be good tomorrow. He would make them believe they had a great practice the next day no matter what. They didn't have many bad ones but he went about things very different.
I'm not as in your face and want to tell them to shut up as soon as someone starts clapping. I expect a bad practice by day 7. I only get concerned if it's not better after a bad one.
Several years ago we had a great practice and was going to end practice with five plays on two without jumping. It took us 1:30. We played a top ten team 2 days later and changed the count every play and they jumped 15x and us none. Who knows! We won also.
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Post by rudyrude9 on Jun 27, 2016 13:41:03 GMT -6
Its just the law of averages and mean regression. You stated that your first four practices were "very good" which I interpret to mean better than average (average being what you would normally expect); if this is the case, wouldn't it make sense that you would eventually have to have a practice that is bad (less than what you would expect)? Otherwise your expectations would have been higher coming into camp, and those "very good" practices would have just been practices that were what you expected, and you most likely wouldn't have noticed. I used to coach with a guy who felt that you couldn't compliment kids too much for good practices because they would then have bad practices. Moreover he felt that if he was verbally abusive after bad practices it would benefit the team and get them back on track; he used anecdotal evidence similar to your situation to support his claim. I told him I disagreed but he stuck to his guns; eventually I created a demonstation to show him how I felt he was wrong. I took out a six sided dice, and told him I wanted this dice to consistently roll a higher number (the higher the number the better). Every time I rolled a 1 or 2 I yelled at it for being bad, if I rolled a 5 or 6 I complimented it for being high. Obviously, the times I rolled low tended to mean regress and be higher the following roll; conversely that number went down following a high roll. Did that indicate my yelling or complimenting impacted the next roll? No of course not. So what was the point of that long winded recounting? That we have a good grasp of what our team will be, sometimes they are a little better than that, sometimes a little worse. As coaches, we try to coach them up to be the best they can be (I am in no way writing not to stop driving and coaching them); but in the end you have an expectation of where they should be (that 3 or 4 roll- and don't say you expect them to be a 6 every time because it is a relative statement, wherever you expect them to be is 3 or 4). Sometimes they will do better, sometimes worse. If they had a lot of "very good" practices then either your expectations were too low or they will mean regress. This is such BS. If it is a random roll everytime we go out to practice why even bother doing all the prep that it takes to have consistently good practices.
My first two years coaching we had bad practices weekly. Then I coached with one of the top ten programs in the state and guess what. Maybe 2 bad practices in 3 years. The reason. The staff put in the work to be prepared for practice every day. Every coach knew what was expected of him during every minute. Every player knew where to be when.
I took that model to our next school and had similar results. The kids put way too much time into being great athletes for coaches to just show up and randomly roll the dice and then blame the kids when practice sucks.
We have great practices because we make sure as coaches that they are great.
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Post by 3rdandlong on Jun 27, 2016 14:00:36 GMT -6
I'm writing this not b/c I'm angry, more or less I actually kind of find it humorous and just believing that I cannot be the only coach here that this happens to. Here's what I'm talking about. We are in summer camp. Monday Tuesday we had very good practices. Looked sharp, buttoned up whatever you want to call it. Very few mistakes, kids were on top of things, etc. We take Wednesdays off to break up the week and then we reconvene on Thursdays & Fridays. Well, again had very good days M/T then we come back today & it's like the biggest $hit show in FB history. Granted we put some new stuff in so I expected some struggle with it but today was exceptionally bad. But it brings me to a bigger point, it seems like anytime we string together a couple of good days we almost always follow it up with a really bad one. For over 20 years now I have seen this happen. Just curious how many of you experience this same kind of trend? Thanks. In my humble opinion, you should take Friday off instead of wednesday. One, to keep up the flow and momentum. Also because of the fact that kids are thinking about the beach and bikinis on Friday while coaches are thinking about well.... the beach and bikinis
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Post by carookie on Jun 27, 2016 21:17:28 GMT -6
Its just the law of averages and mean regression. You stated that your first four practices were "very good" which I interpret to mean better than average (average being what you would normally expect); if this is the case, wouldn't it make sense that you would eventually have to have a practice that is bad (less than what you would expect)? Otherwise your expectations would have been higher coming into camp, and those "very good" practices would have just been practices that were what you expected, and you most likely wouldn't have noticed. I used to coach with a guy who felt that you couldn't compliment kids too much for good practices because they would then have bad practices. Moreover he felt that if he was verbally abusive after bad practices it would benefit the team and get them back on track; he used anecdotal evidence similar to your situation to support his claim. I told him I disagreed but he stuck to his guns; eventually I created a demonstation to show him how I felt he was wrong. I took out a six sided dice, and told him I wanted this dice to consistently roll a higher number (the higher the number the better). Every time I rolled a 1 or 2 I yelled at it for being bad, if I rolled a 5 or 6 I complimented it for being high. Obviously, the times I rolled low tended to mean regress and be higher the following roll; conversely that number went down following a high roll. Did that indicate my yelling or complimenting impacted the next roll? No of course not. So what was the point of that long winded recounting? That we have a good grasp of what our team will be, sometimes they are a little better than that, sometimes a little worse. As coaches, we try to coach them up to be the best they can be (I am in no way writing not to stop driving and coaching them); but in the end you have an expectation of where they should be (that 3 or 4 roll- and don't say you expect them to be a 6 every time because it is a relative statement, wherever you expect them to be is 3 or 4). Sometimes they will do better, sometimes worse. If they had a lot of "very good" practices then either your expectations were too low or they will mean regress. This is such BS. If it is a random roll everytime we go out to practice why even bother doing all the prep that it takes to have consistently good practices.
My first two years coaching we had bad practices weekly. Then I coached with one of the top ten programs in the state and guess what. Maybe 2 bad practices in 3 years. The reason. The staff put in the work to be prepared for practice every day. Every coach knew what was expected of him during every minute. Every player knew where to be when.
I took that model to our next school and had similar results. The kids put way too much time into being great athletes for coaches to just show up and randomly roll the dice and then blame the kids when practice sucks.
We have great practices because we make sure as coaches that they are great.
I never wrote that it is a random roll everytime we go out to practice, please re-read my post. My point was that there was a coach who felt we shouldn't compliment after a good practice because it leads to bad practices. My point is that if you have a 'good practice' (good meaning that it is better than what you expect to have), then odds are the next practice will be worse- it is mean regression. The dice roll simulation (though poorly explained by me in my original post) was designed to show that. If I rolled a 5 on a given roll, the odds are the next roll would be less. If you had two good practices, once again good relative to the current team you had and what you expect a practice to be, then odds are you will soon have a practice less than good. Otherwise you would adjust your expectations of what good for that given team was. Thank you for the opportunity to clarify my original post.
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