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Post by wingt74 on Jan 25, 2008 7:08:15 GMT -6
IMHO, if you cannot coach or teach a kid your system as a Frosh have him prepared and ready to compete for your varsity team squad at least by his JR year but s/b by his Soph year it speaks more about your staff than what the youth teams do. Not to mention not all of your players played youth ball. I played and coached in areas were there weren't any feeder teams. Kids all went to various Jr. HS and HS so it would be impossible. Schools still have success. IMHO, all feeder programs do is make the job of varsity coaches easier. Lastly, YOU may not care if these youth teams win or lose as HS coaches but you better beleive that the KIDS, PARENTS, AND YES YOUTH COACHES CARE! And they should. Most of those kids will never play again and this will be their last memory as a football player. As a youth coach i taught my players the funamentals of football. But I COACHED to WIN! I we did it without gimmick offenses or defenses! I don't have a problem with feeder programs as long as everyone is on the same page. And if you are going to require the youth and MS coaches to run your system. BE THERE FOR THEM when they have questions! my .02 Well, I slightly disagree with this. If a kid is taught from 4th grade till 8th grade, that the wholes are numbered 9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 from left to right...and then he gets to highschool and the holes go odd left even right...well, it's always tougher to unlearn something. Thats exactly why it is critical that youth coaches need to teach fundamentals correctly...to get that muscle-memory developed. A kid coached on the proper way to block and tackle for 7 years may have a significant advantage over a kid being taught for 3-4 years. But otherwise, yeah...formations, plays, defensive alignments...after their freshman year, they should have them down.
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Post by tye2021 on Jan 25, 2008 12:53:58 GMT -6
wingt74,
I do see your point about that hole numbering. That can be confusing.
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Post by coachcalande on Jan 25, 2008 13:38:44 GMT -6
Yknow, sometimes I think "years of experience" at the youth level is a bit overrated.
Heres the reality, we are sending three of (varsity) our olinemen to play college football this year. ...none of these guys did squat in the youth league. Im not sure they all even played in the pee wees. that said, I do know that some of the stars from that youth group didnt even stick out their football careers in hs.
now, consider what a "year" of football is at the youth level...
8 games, maybe 10...those games are usually with 8-10 minute quarters...they typical practice is 2-3 times a week for 2 hours.
To think that those kids have a big advantage of a kid who didnt experience that might be a mistake. In my own experiences at the frosh level I typically found that the kids who were hitting puberty and had size strength and speed advantages were the ones who were good players, not necessarily those with "experience"...in addition when it comes to "muscle memory"- sorry, but it takes thousands of reps for that to occur and certainly with the growth spurts and all that I dont think you can expect that to stick after 8 weeks of practices twice a week. and hole numbering and terminology??? are you kidding me? our kids at the ms level sometimes would forget their plays from a friday afternoon til our monday practice! I know there was a study not long ago that said the 8th grade level was the WORST time for learning to occur because of all the sexual discoveries and hormones and social phobia and self awareness etc....
...maybe its overrated, maybe not.
I cant wait until the day I have a youth feeder program that has our uniforms, runs our stuff, our coaches are all interchangable at any level...kids trading football trading cards of our hs players ...one program, one heart beat, one goal.
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