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Post by 33coach on Jul 14, 2016 10:28:36 GMT -6
33coach It sounds like you guys have already talked to the parents/families that aren't returning. I would think about contacting them again, and just putting all the cards on the table. "Unfortunately, due to a lack of interest, we won't be able to field a football team this season. I am asking you to tell us point blank, what sort of things would be necessary for your family to play football in the Fall of 2017? And really kind of press them a bit when they give the none answer of "nothing you guys did, we are just committed to baseball". Follow that up with "well, what can we do to help your son get to experience BOTH sports? I am just throwing out ideas. Like I said, culturally that isn't likely to happen here in South Louisiana within the next few years. The only thing that would keep kids from football at rates that shut down programs would be head injury hysteria. Are you guys the only team in the league of 12 that is cancelling? How will that affect them? Is it an overarching sports league or just a football league? as of right now, my plan is to go into camp with the 15 i have, hope that more show up during camp. and yea, im going to start grilling parents, luckily i have a good relationship with MOST of them, so its not that hard to talk to them. part of me wants to say if i get one more, go for it...hell if the kids will play with 16, so will i. yep we will be the only ones to drop this year... the only thing that will change for the other teams is their will be 11 teams so scheduling / playoffs could be interesting... we are a football only group, since there is no true middle school program here in our county
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Post by 33coach on Jul 14, 2016 10:30:21 GMT -6
Hahaha we were out that way and the girl said "hell no" to the humidity and the heat. It's just now starting to get warm. The heat index is just barely breaking 100 so far. How many kids do you usually have in a given year? We're looking at 55-ish, and that's easily the second largest team I've had here. if we get 28+ im in heaven, typically we hover around 23 - 25. another thing that angers me this year.... i was supposed to have 35...
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Post by natenator on Jul 14, 2016 10:42:46 GMT -6
You have the experience and thus the advantage over me here, 33 - but player or coach I would not want to practice for five weeks before playing a game. The light at the end of that tunnel would seem impossibly far off. And it seems to me that two weeks practice with no contact (I assume no pads) would be wasting a lot of time. there are parts of it i like, and parts of it i dont. like i think 1 week is more then enough for no pads...... but i dont get a say in that. i do like having at least 3 weeks before a scrimmage, mostly because we don't get any kind of spring or summer program. I coach competitive travel ball here in Canada during the summer and you get half as many practices before your season starts as I do my entire preseason and regular season combined. We had 45 practices over 20 weeks this year.
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Post by 33coach on Jul 14, 2016 10:44:50 GMT -6
there are parts of it i like, and parts of it i dont. like i think 1 week is more then enough for no pads...... but i dont get a say in that. i do like having at least 3 weeks before a scrimmage, mostly because we don't get any kind of spring or summer program. I coach competitive travel ball here in Canada during the summer and you get half as many practices before your season starts as I do my entire preseason and regular season combined. We had 45 practices over 20 weeks this year. is it common for you to get first year players up there?
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Post by coachd5085 on Jul 14, 2016 10:46:26 GMT -6
33coach It sounds like you guys have already talked to the parents/families that aren't returning. I would think about contacting them again, and just putting all the cards on the table. "Unfortunately, due to a lack of interest, we won't be able to field a football team this season. I am asking you to tell us point blank, what sort of things would be necessary for your family to play football in the Fall of 2017? And really kind of press them a bit when they give the none answer of "nothing you guys did, we are just committed to baseball". Follow that up with "well, what can we do to help your son get to experience BOTH sports? I am just throwing out ideas. Like I said, culturally that isn't likely to happen here in South Louisiana within the next few years. The only thing that would keep kids from football at rates that shut down programs would be head injury hysteria. Are you guys the only team in the league of 12 that is cancelling? How will that affect them? Is it an overarching sports league or just a football league? as of right now, my plan is to go into camp with the 15 i have, hope that more show up during camp. and yea, im going to start grilling parents, luckily i have a good relationship with MOST of them, so its not that hard to talk to them. part of me wants to say if i get one more, go for it...hell if the kids will play with 16, so will i. yep we will be the only ones to drop this year... the only thing that will change for the other teams is their will be 11 teams so scheduling / playoffs could be interesting... we are a football only group, since there is no true middle school program here in our county I think you might approach the league and see if they are having similar issues. If so, perhaps then some changes to league rules might help.
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Post by natenator on Jul 14, 2016 10:48:43 GMT -6
I coach competitive travel ball here in Canada during the summer and you get half as many practices before your season starts as I do my entire preseason and regular season combined. We had 45 practices over 20 weeks this year. is it common for you to get first year players up there? Very. I can think of at least 10 kids who were brand new to football on my grade 7/8 team this year. We even get newbies on our JV team, although not nearly as many (probably around 5 every year).
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Post by 33coach on Jul 14, 2016 10:54:44 GMT -6
is it common for you to get first year players up there? Very. I can think of at least 10 kids who were brand new to football on my grade 7/8 team this year. We even get newbies on our JV team, although not nearly as many (probably around 5 every year). how do you practice so little with people who are new?
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Post by 33coach on Jul 14, 2016 10:55:29 GMT -6
as of right now, my plan is to go into camp with the 15 i have, hope that more show up during camp. and yea, im going to start grilling parents, luckily i have a good relationship with MOST of them, so its not that hard to talk to them. part of me wants to say if i get one more, go for it...hell if the kids will play with 16, so will i. yep we will be the only ones to drop this year... the only thing that will change for the other teams is their will be 11 teams so scheduling / playoffs could be interesting... we are a football only group, since there is no true middle school program here in our county I think you might approach the league and see if they are having similar issues. If so, perhaps then some changes to league rules might help. thats the other thought. im (sadly) hoping that other teams are feeling this pain and some new rules will come out of it.
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Post by blb on Jul 14, 2016 11:43:06 GMT -6
Seriously - if I knew first ten days were no pads and there'd be five weeks of practice before we got to play a game,
I might start looking for the Soccer field or decide to spend August playing video games in the AC before resuming my Baseball career.
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Post by silkyice on Jul 14, 2016 12:33:51 GMT -6
Couple of random comments.
I would practice for three weeks and play. Two seems too short, but 5 seems way to far out. I would definitely not do any actual practice until August.
Agree about bball and baseball being tournament sports. They play way more than they practice. They get to play 3-10 games in a weekend.
Around here they actually give out rings to teams that win baseball tournaments. What???
This is no lie, they now actually give out rings to the teams that FINISH SECOND!!! That is down right un-American and communist!!! LOL, but true. Amazing
There are about 20 different ways to be a World Series champion as an eight year old. USSSA majors, USSSA AAA, USSSA AA, USSSA A, Grand slam with about three divisions. Dixie Youth. Cal Ripken. Dizzie Dean. Actual Little League. You can be Fall world series champs, winter, spring, summer, Disney, whatever. Point is I know some 12 year-olds that are World Series champs and will never start for a high school team!!!
All this FAKE crap, rings, year-round play, burnout, injuries, and expense really are driving me crazy and RUINING BASEBALL. I know I said this, but it is a CULT.
I let my now 16 year old son play travel ball instead of park ball when we moved to Tuscaloosa. The reason: because this team finished their tournaments on June 15. If he would have played park ball, All-Stars would have gone into August. So I did it so he could play LESS. LOL. They played about 7 tournaments total from March until June. Practiced a couple of times a week. It was great. They were good but not great.
My son plays all sports and started as an 8th grader on the varsity. This non-sense about playing year round kills the kids. He probably won't play basketball this year. Why? Because he doesn't want to. One of his classmates also started as an 8th grader. He also played all three sports. Just got offered by Miss State and South Alabama in baseball and will get more offers. So he has played no Fall ball and doesn't start baseball until February and gets SEC offers as an upcoming 10th grader.
I firmly believe that if you are good enough, that you do not need more baseball. As a matter of fact, I firmly believe that if you are borderline college player that you need the toughness and athleticism that football will give you and the strength, speed, and power that the weight room will give you more than an extra 1000 swings or bullpens!!!
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Post by utchuckd on Jul 14, 2016 12:36:32 GMT -6
So the question remains what, if anything, can youth football do to increase the "trappings". Youth baseball has fancy gear, faux elite status, and what I think is the biggest hurdle for football-- a chance at a "championship" (with rings) nearly every weekend. its just a difference in the game, you cant even hold football tournaments... could you imagine the outrage of parents and the "child safety" lawsuits if you played a double header in football? LOL They have youth football tournaments here in November when all the leagues are done playing. I've considered going to one with my bunch but we're in basketball then and i don't want to rock that boat because I have a great relationship with our b-ball coach.
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Post by 33coach on Jul 14, 2016 12:37:48 GMT -6
its just a difference in the game, you cant even hold football tournaments... could you imagine the outrage of parents and the "child safety" lawsuits if you played a double header in football? LOL They have youth football tournaments here in November when all the leagues are done playing. I've considered going to one with my bunch but we're in basketball then and i don't want to rock that boat because I have a great relationship with our b-ball coach. how could you play 3 games in a weekend? or more? it seems like the kids would be dead by that point haha...
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Post by utchuckd on Jul 14, 2016 12:48:27 GMT -6
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Post by bobgoodman on Jul 14, 2016 12:49:36 GMT -6
So the question remains what, if anything, can youth football do to increase the "trappings". Youth baseball has fancy gear, faux elite status, and what I think is the biggest hurdle for football-- a chance at a "championship" (with rings) nearly every weekend. But that's exactly the stuff that'd bore most of us, the coaches. Youth football oriented like that would be more like a cross between school theater (or other youth theater) and JROTC/cadet corps. And it'd be even more for the parents than for the kids. The only coaches who'd like it would be of the type of Terwilliger of The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. The rest of us would often be very satisfied to have all the parents disappear from the scene.
Boys (maybe girls too, I'm not sure) have been nuts for pro (exhibition) wrestling for a long time. But when you look at actual martial arts/combat sports, freestyle wrestling must be one of the least popular with children. They take up various Oriental types of hand-and-body fighting, they'll play paintball, but when it comes to real competitive wrestling, they see it as boring compared to the spectacle or circus act of the pros. So parents may push them into a similar spectacle in other sports, but the kids aren't going to have much fun at them.
At DumCoach a couple months ago someone asked about things to do to get more fun & excitement into game day. Here's the thread. Reply #4 is the one I considered the most significant. The game itself is supposed to be the fun.
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Post by silkyice on Jul 14, 2016 13:27:17 GMT -6
Maybe I am delusional, but I could literally get on a plane a fly to NY and play for the Yankees and play left field for them and possibly do better than the current left fielder. Over the course of a 162 game season, I promise that on at least one game I will be better. He might strike out four times and make an error. I might walk once and not make that error. You can't even begin to say the same thing about me playing pro football or basketball. Yes, delusional. What seem like big differences to you that result in the variation of major league baseballers' performance from game to game are smaller than the differences that separate them from the middle range of the minor leagues, and much smaller than the differences with amateurs. They go to great lengths to refine their rosters, sending people up and down based on what seem to us to be slim differences. In the field, OK, there are many games where you'd be able to make the same plays at most positions, but batting is a huge separating factor. You'd have a better chance of being competitive in pro football at most positions, or basketball given the right size. There are two points here. What you look like and your athleticism. And then the nature of the game. First, I am 46 years old, 6'1 215. I have no chance of playing pro football or pro bball. Do not misunderstand me, I am no major league baseball player at all. That is my point. But I do look like one. 20 years years ago I know I was stronger than the average major league outfielder and my speed would have been just fine. So athletically, I am there (was there). 95% of the male population could play baseball if they were skillful enough. Meaning their athleticism is not huge hindering factor. Only about 2% of the population could probably play pro football when you factor size, speed, and strength and only 1% basketball when you factor height, jumping ability, and quickness. Disclaimer: I know that these pro baseball players for the most part are also great athletes, not just skillful ones. When you are talking about the major leagues and the best players in the world, they are great athletes and super skilled. Second point, I can outperform or at least equal some starters in baseball in a given game due to the nature of the game. There will be baseball players that go hit less tonight and make an error and their team will still win. I can do that!!!!!! Heck, like I said, I might not make that error, and/or I might get a walk. Over the course of 162 games, of course the major league player will vastly out perform me. But I could luck a hit or two in 162 games and even make a few decent catches in left. I know that I could start for a major league team all season in left and we would still win 40 plus games. If we were a good team, we could probably win 60 plus to maybe even 80. I am just 1 out of 9 batters and I can catch a fly ball. If I started for the worst team in football and we played the best team, my team is about to get obliterated. Pick a position and we are in trouble. If I play defense, they are going right after me and there is nothing I can do about it. If I play offense, I am no skill threat and wouldn't be able to block anyone. Basketball would be even worse. Whoever I am about to guard is about to career night on me. In football and basketball, I have to do something to a person. In baseball, I just have to succeed in my limited opportunities against a ball. Of wait, I don't even have to do that for my team to win.
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Post by coachd5085 on Jul 14, 2016 13:30:45 GMT -6
] At DumCoach a couple months ago someone asked about things to do to get more fun & excitement into game day. Here's the thread. Reply #4 is the one I considered the most significant. The game itself is supposed to be the fun.
A few thoughts : 1) that is assuming that the "trappings" were simply game day related. 2) you can't tell kids "the game itself is supposed to be the fun" when you don't have kids signing up for the team.
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Post by silkyice on Jul 14, 2016 13:35:26 GMT -6
To understand what my above post has to do with our topic.
1) 95% of these kids will actually be a big, fast, and strong as some major leagues when they grow up. Therefore, it is not out of the realm of possibility that they can be one. Fuel for the fire.
2) All these kids will be an all-star, or on an elite team, or win a "world series" at some point. Just fuel to the fire.
3) They will all be the best player for a game or many games. Their actual best player might have a bad game. Go 0-4 and make an error. But Johnny might go 3-4 and make a diving catch. Heck, he might even be the hero. He might be the pitcher and strike out the last guy to win the game. Or get the game winning hit. Or score the game winning run. The best player might actually have a good game and go 3-4, but someone else might go 4-4 with a homerun. It doesn't matter that that guy ends up hitting .185, all he remembers is that 4-4 game and homerun. If I just play more and play in the Fall..........More fuel for the fire.
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Post by bobgoodman on Jul 14, 2016 13:58:16 GMT -6
I'm not really comfortable w/o 15 hrs. of pre-season practice in pads, and would like a little more (and would really need it if we had live punt plays), but since 2010 I've usually had to settle for less. Where I was before stretched out pre-season over 4 weeks (maybe it was 5), with 3 sessions (7 hours total) most weeks, but not all in pads, and that really did seem to be overkill for what the results were. Here we usually get only 2, sometimes 3 sessions a week pre-season, but it's all in pads, and sometimes it's only 2 and a half weeks, and they occupy some of the time of most sessions with club-wide warmups.
I don't think pre-season prep is that boring to the kids if you throw a formal scrimmage in there and at least occasional scrimmage-style drills. The club that had all that pre-season prep did host a jamboree, but otherwise tried to limit contact in drills so much (and they had club-wide warmups too) that I think the kids got bored and were afraid of contact once the season began. Where I am now, most of the pre-season prep is full contact, which makes most of the kids more enthusiastic.
My ideal pre-season (assuming a division where all kicking situations were fully live) would be almost all suited up, 4 weeks of one 2-hour (Sat./Sun.) and two 90-minute (weeknight) sessions, with no specific warmups and one of the weekend sessions replaced by a formal scrimmage. Could start in-week, cutting out the 1st weekend session, and then it'd be 18 hrs. total if scrimmage day takes 2 hrs. That's if Labor Day weekend could be treated as a normal part of the calendar. Then just the weeknight sessions in-season, unless there's a bye week.
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Post by **** on Jul 15, 2016 5:51:55 GMT -6
People would flip chit if football was year round.
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Post by blb on Jul 15, 2016 6:01:01 GMT -6
People would flip chit if football was year round.
It IS year-round, just longer between games sometimes.
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Post by **** on Jul 15, 2016 6:13:18 GMT -6
People would flip chit if football was year round.
It IS year-round, just longer between games sometimes.
My kids get 6 months off. Not sure how that is year round.
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Post by blb on Jul 15, 2016 6:20:10 GMT -6
It IS year-round, just longer between games sometimes.
My kids get 6 months off. Not sure how that is year round.
Good for you.
In addition to all the Summer stuff, most coaches around here begin Off-Season lifting after Thanksgiving or New Year's if they don't have a STC class during school day.
Some take advantage of the "four player rule" during school year too. Some still have "Football class" even though state association effectively outlawed them a few years ago.
And of course there are some states that have Spring Football practice.
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Post by coachd5085 on Jul 15, 2016 8:05:14 GMT -6
In addition to all the Summer stuff, most coaches around here begin Off-Season lifting after Thanksgiving or New Year's if they don't have a STC class during school day.
While I understand what you are trying to say I have to ask why S/C falls under "football prep". I don't mean by you specifically, but just in general, in 2016. We as an athletic community should be past that (again, not you specifically blb but in general)
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Post by blb on Jul 15, 2016 8:36:19 GMT -6
In addition to all the Summer stuff, most coaches around here begin Off-Season lifting after Thanksgiving or New Year's if they don't have a STC class during school day.
While I understand what you are trying to say I have to ask why S/C falls under "football prep". I don't mean by you specifically, but just in general, in 2016. We as an athletic community should be past that (again, not you specifically blb but in general)
I agree with you in theory or principle but my experience-reality has been otherwise.
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Post by **** on Jul 15, 2016 10:10:02 GMT -6
My kids get 6 months off. Not sure how that is year round.
Good for you.
In addition to all the Summer stuff, most coaches around here begin Off-Season lifting after Thanksgiving or New Year's if they don't have a STC class during school day.
Some take advantage of the "four player rule" during school year too. Some still have "Football class" even though state association effectively outlawed them a few years ago.
And of course there are some states that have Spring Football practice.
Lifting is not football. If it's apart of the rules then why would you not have spring football/football class/etc. If it's against the rules then those schools should be punished.
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Post by blb on Jul 15, 2016 11:33:26 GMT -6
...says the guy who claimed his team would win because his kids did Single Leg Snatches over one who did Cleans.
Seriously - if kids are in a before or after school weight and-or conditioning (Agility, Speed Training, whatever) program for Football players supervised by Football coaches - it's Football.
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Post by 33coach on Jul 15, 2016 13:25:18 GMT -6
Lifting is pretty far outside youth / JRHS discussions... Lifting is minimal if at all.
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Post by utchuckd on Jul 15, 2016 14:15:50 GMT -6
Lifting is pretty far outside youth / JRHS discussions... Lifting is minimal if at all. Not necessarily...
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Post by bobgoodman on Jul 15, 2016 19:34:10 GMT -6
People would flip chit if football was year round. It sort-of was in the early days. As long as baseball season was, football season was even longer, because although very little (note I'm not saying "none") baseball was played in the winter, football often at least attempted to play thru winter. In the British Isles where the games came from, winters were not as severe. However, in the earliest days what established the football season was the availability of fields in the absence of dedicated play fields, which meant waiting under the crops were off them, and then stopping when they were planted. But where suitable nonagricultural fields were available, people played whenever they could get up a game -- or they played right thru the street & your flower garden.
When it came to college football in North America, as opposed to the games played by the hoi polloi, the original season was fall & spring, with the winter mostly off, same as rugby season in most of North America these days. It wasn't until the NCAA was established -- with the goal of suppressing college football, basically -- that spring football, which had already become less popular, was abolished.
I've a feeling, though, that children played whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted to.
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Post by **** on Jul 16, 2016 9:04:45 GMT -6
...says the guy who claimed his team would win because his kids did Single Leg Snatches over one who did Cleans.
Seriously - if kids are in a before or after school weight and-or conditioning (Agility, Speed Training, whatever) program for Football players supervised by Football coaches - it's Football.
Reading comprehension.
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