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Post by vicvinegar on Nov 12, 2019 10:19:28 GMT -6
So just curious what some of you coaches that have either had success or just ideas of how to run a program in these types of areas. There are a few schools around the state that I just wonder why they struggle year in and year out. Watching highlights, I can see some of it is coaching, but surely they have had a decent coach or two throughout the years. They are in very poor, rural areas, but are in conferences that they should be able to compete in. I'm not ready to become a HC yet, but when I am, I find jobs like this intriguing. Feel free to add other aspects that need to be addressed, but these are a few off the top of my head are:
1) What types of fundraisers would be most effective in a poor area. I do have some ideas, but I can't imagine stuff that we have done at the suburb school I'm at now like a mulch sale working in a poor/rural area.
2) Being able to attract assistants to a rural area with no larger cities near. Do you have to make sure sure Admin is willing to help you get coaches in the building/ school system?
3) What about creating your off-season schedule? With many players likely needing to work, do you only go lift 3 days a week after school? Make sure Admin is willing to create a lifting class during the school day? Same for summer?
4) Get up the numbers. Some of these schools have 500 or 600 students, but only 25 players.
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Post by olcoach53 on Nov 12, 2019 10:35:00 GMT -6
Coached one season in a small rural town in North Carolina
1. We did the normal fundraiser. Card sales, chicken plates, things like that.
2. Assistants were tough to come by. We found some young alum who were willing to volunteer and then had the couple guys who were in the building help out as well. I think in total we had 5 guys who handled varsity and junior varsity.
3. Off-season was handled during the day because we were allowed a weight training period. As far as athletics most of the kids played multiple sports so that was easily dealt with.
4. Recruited the halls as much as possible. It was tough but I believe we ended up with 40 on the varsity roster and around 30 for JV.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 12, 2019 14:30:46 GMT -6
So just curious what some of you coaches that have either had success or just ideas of how to run a program in these types of areas. There are a few schools around the state that I just wonder why they struggle year in and year out. Watching highlights, I can see some of it is coaching, but surely they have had a decent coach or two throughout the years. They are in very poor, rural areas, but are in conferences that they should be able to compete in. I'm not ready to become a HC yet, but when I am, I find jobs like this intriguing. Feel free to add other aspects that need to be addressed, but these are a few off the top of my head are: 1) What types of fundraisers would be most effective in a poor area. I do have some ideas, but I can't imagine stuff that we have done at the suburb school I'm at now like a mulch sale working in a poor/rural area. 2) Being able to attract assistants to a rural area with no larger cities near. Do you have to make sure sure Admin is willing to help you get coaches in the building/ school system? 3) What about creating your off-season schedule? With many players likely needing to work, do you only go lift 3 days a week after school? Make sure Admin is willing to create a lifting class during the school day? Same for summer? 4) Get up the numbers. Some of these schools have 500 or 600 students, but only 25 players. I've coached in a place like this. School had enrollment of about 400, but usually struggled badly with numbers. We also played against some similar schools: The main reasons they struggled were: 1. Hard to get and keep good coaches. If they were lucky, they had a HC who knew what he was doing and he was on his own. Then all the small town politics were even more intense there because of how isolated the place was. 2. Basketball program hoarded all the athletes. The basketball coaches there were often fairly successful, which gave them credibility when they'd tell kids to focus on basketball and that they'd suffer gruesome injuries playing football. As a result, a lot of the best athletes in a very limited talent pool wouldn't touch a football field. 3. Isolated geography. Usually, small schools like this would have already been consolidated into larger schools if the geography allowed it. As it was, these small schools were in extremely rural areas and transportation to and from weights and practice was a major problem when kids lived an hour away from the school. 10-15 kids could make it work for basketball, but you need a lot more for football. The time commitment all that extra travel added also made it more stressful on kids who lived further away. 4. Poverty. Rural poor is desperate poor. A lot of kids had to work to support their families or they'd miss weights and workouts to do odd jobs so their family didn't get evicted. Maybe they were tied up doing farm work, or rebuilding an engine, or doing random odd jobs. They just had bigger things to worry about than 80% attendance at workouts or whatever. 5. Culture of failure. All of that had combined to create a mindset in the community and in the kids that they were supposed to suck, could never be any better, and that the things that kept them bad (kids missing tons of practice, kids skipping the offseason but still playing because they were the best athletes and the team needed them due to low numbers) was acceptable. 6. Little-to-no feeder system. A lot of kids would never play football until they got to HS and it would take them at least a year to acclimate to the contact and learn the basic techniques of blocking, tackling, etc. The feeder school usually was lucky to get 15 kids on the team and if there was a youth program, it was usually terrible and poorly run/coached, which turned kids off to football. As for your questions... Fundraising in places like that can be brutal. At the school I was at, the school board had decided that homecoming and other big fundraising events couldn't be used and everybody was way underfunded, so you had a very poor population group that was constantly getting hit up for money by kids in every club or activity because they all needed cash. People only had so much to give. Lift-a-thons didn't make much. Pizza sales lost money. Etc. The only things we found that worked were little events like selling banners for the stadium, car washes, selling team merchandise, selling season tickets, renting a dunk tank for the 4th of July celebration downtown, and raffles. The best fundraisers for things like that were when the coaches would take it upon themselves to go and do some type of extra work (like working concessions at an SEC school's basketball games over an hour away) and then donate that to the kids. It was just tough. Attracting assistants is damn near impossible in places like that, especially with admin under increased scrutiny to deliver test scores. Odds are that if the school was supportive of football in the first place, they'd already have better numbers and records. There are few jobs to go around and, IME, those places usually give those jobs to people based almost purely on nepotism and/or testing needs. Coaching is an afterthought so you're left trying to recruit whatever you can recruit from the staff or community to help you out. You're lucky if you can find 1 or 2 guys, and if you can get a good coach in the building he's likely to bolt in a year or two for a better job elsewhere. Getting a lifting class in places like that can be like pulling teeth because the school has a very limited budget and a lot of courses that need to be taught. Even if you can get the class, it can be difficult to get kids in there or get control of it--often they'll hand that to a PE teacher who may or may not know or care about lifting. If you can get it, great... but don't hold your breath. You're likely to have to do all your lifting after school, and certain days (Fridays and, for us, Wednesdays due to mid-week church) can be hard to get kids out. Do it 2-4 days per week year-round and keep it consistent, calling kids' homes when they start missing weights just to check on where they were (because, in our state, i can't be "mandatory"). Try to make it fun for them when they are there. All of that stuff goes hand in hand with getting up the numbers. Some stuff we did... We challenged our kids to recruit their friends. They'll always be your best recruiters. Our QB was pretty good and agreed to play basketball if some of the basketball players would come out for football, which helped greatly. We worked very hard to build relationships with kids in the school--especially at the feeder school--and sell them on coming out by talking up how much fun it was going to be. I don't care if he was dorky, fat, or unathletic looking... if he was a boy we hit him up to play and made sure he knew we were cool to work with. Keep practices and weight sessions as brief, organized, and positive as possible. Yelling at kids through marathon practices while you channel your inner Bear Bryant is not going to help get and keep kids out.
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Post by hsrose on Nov 12, 2019 14:49:24 GMT -6
blockandtackle - Are you coaching here? Everything you was pretty well spot on for what I've experienced the past 7 years. The only deviation was that what assistant coaches there were around here were the direct relations to Bear Bryant, Vince Lombardi, and Knute Rockne and knew so much more than anyone else did. Hard to get the on-field going when the first response to any mistake was to yell louder.
The best fundraising for us was doing our own discount cards. Talk to the local store owners and get them to buy in, they're looking for customers. Sell the cards with local discounts at local stores and folks like that. The only Chains we had were Burger King and Subway, everything else was a local store that everyone knew. Folks appreciated the discounts, stores got more customers. Other than that it's hard to raise funds. When I was in the SF Bay Area we could work the local pro sports teams and concert halls, get in, work it, make a quick $1,500-2,000 for a nights work. We do 4th of July parking at a local venue here that does fireworks.
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Post by mrjvi on Nov 12, 2019 16:28:17 GMT -6
Block and Tackle and hsrose- I was going to say the same-are you coaching here? Numbers for football are hurting in all the small, rural schools. Many, including us, are trying to merge FB programs. That would help us tremendously. Fundraisers are tough just like you guys said. BB concentration is another area tough to battle.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 12, 2019 17:33:18 GMT -6
So just curious what some of you coaches that have either had success or just ideas of how to run a program in these types of areas. There are a few schools around the state that I just wonder why they struggle year in and year out. Watching highlights, I can see some of it is coaching, but surely they have had a decent coach or two throughout the years. They are in very poor, rural areas, but are in conferences that they should be able to compete in. I'm not ready to become a HC yet, but when I am, I find jobs like this intriguing. Feel free to add other aspects that need to be addressed, but these are a few off the top of my head are: 1) What types of fundraisers would be most effective in a poor area. I do have some ideas, but I can't imagine stuff that we have done at the suburb school I'm at now like a mulch sale working in a poor/rural area. 2) Being able to attract assistants to a rural area with no larger cities near. Do you have to make sure sure Admin is willing to help you get coaches in the building/ school system? 3) What about creating your off-season schedule? With many players likely needing to work, do you only go lift 3 days a week after school? Make sure Admin is willing to create a lifting class during the school day? Same for summer? 4) Get up the numbers. Some of these schools have 500 or 600 students, but only 25 players. poor areas, fundraising is a joke. There is no money in poor areas. Schools are run in the same. Kids are in charge. Race card is always looming, discipline is nearly impossible. Coaches there do not want to go there.But.. If you survive, thrive, make a 2 round playoff run, good things are coming your way.talent may or may not get on field due to academics. The other end small rural schools with money. Less money for the teacher, school us run like it should, if you cant teach you will not work there. Lots of money, built in discipline. Fundraising is not needed cause people are invested. Lack of talent. I am in first scenario. First round playoff against team with athletes everywhere but zero coaching discipline.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 12, 2019 17:36:02 GMT -6
So just curious what some of you coaches that have either had success or just ideas of how to run a program in these types of areas. There are a few schools around the state that I just wonder why they struggle year in and year out. Watching highlights, I can see some of it is coaching, but surely they have had a decent coach or two throughout the years. They are in very poor, rural areas, but are in conferences that they should be able to compete in. I'm not ready to become a HC yet, but when I am, I find jobs like this intriguing. Feel free to add other aspects that need to be addressed, but these are a few off the top of my head are: 1) What types of fundraisers would be most effective in a poor area. I do have some ideas, but I can't imagine stuff that we have done at the suburb school I'm at now like a mulch sale working in a poor/rural area. 2) Being able to attract assistants to a rural area with no larger cities near. Do you have to make sure sure Admin is willing to help you get coaches in the building/ school system? 3) What about creating your off-season schedule? With many players likely needing to work, do you only go lift 3 days a week after school? Make sure Admin is willing to create a lifting class during the school day? Same for summer? 4) Get up the numbers. Some of these schools have 500 or 600 students, but only 25 players. poor areas, fundraising is a joke. There is no money in poor areas. Schools are run in the same. Kids are in charge. Race card is always looming, discipline is nearly impossible. Coaches there do not want to go there.But.. If you survive, thrive, make a 2 round playoff run, good things are coming your way.talent may or may not get on field due to academics. The other end small rural schools with money. Less money for the teacher, school us run like it should, if you cant teach you will not work there. Lots of money, built in discipline. Fundraising is not needed cause people are invested. Lack of talent. I am in first scenario. First round playoff against team with athletes everywhere but zero coaching discipline. most of the kids who work, are selling, runners, sucking ( i wont finish that)...in bad company. But flipping burgers, going by a schedule? That aint happening.
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center
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Post by center on Nov 12, 2019 20:21:24 GMT -6
Great thread. Great posts, especially blockandtackle...
These jobs are brutal, maybe impossible, but a coach can really make a difference with these kids.
If I had to emphasize one thing to start a program it would to get the kids to practice. I wouldn’t worry about off-season incentives as much as providing in season incentives to get kids there every day.
I would have lifting with practice a couple of times a week and try and build momentum for offseason lifting. Keep the same simple program year around.
Short practices. No weekend stuff at all. Any film you want watched is at practice. Don’t rely on kids watching HUDL alone.
Fundraising thought is kids at these schools love to spend what money they have on concessions. Try and work those over the course of the year to build some money.
Try and run a low budget program. Instead of spending $5000 a year on HUDL stuff just get some way to film the games.
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Post by vicvinegar on Nov 12, 2019 20:35:25 GMT -6
Some good stuff guys.Please keep it coming! I realize that a lot of these programs have a lot of challenges. I've just never been a big believer in that you can't be successful at a program. There are certain exceptions (Admin, conference), but I don't feel like socioeconomics is a reason. Certainly it creates difficulties, but not an acceptable excuse.
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Post by vicvinegar on Nov 12, 2019 20:41:19 GMT -6
Great thread. Great posts, especially blockandtackle... These jobs are brutal, maybe impossible, but a coach can really make a difference with these kids. If I had to emphasize one thing to start a program it would to get the kids to practice. I wouldn’t worry about off-season incentives as much as providing in season incentives to get kids there every day. I would have lifting with practice a couple of times a week and try and build momentum for offseason lifting. Keep the same simple program year around. Short practices. No weekend stuff at all. Any film you want watched is at practice. Don’t rely on kids watching HUDL alone. Fundraising thought is kids at these schools love to spend what money they have on concessions. Try and work those over the course of the year to build some money. Try and run a low budget program. Instead of spending $5000 a year on HUDL stuff just get some way to film the games. I think I would struggle without Hudl. lol I do agree with the not having weekend stuff. I think this allows these types of kids to work during the season. You bring up a great point with fundraising. A school I student taught at allowed the football team to sell snacks. I don't know what type of numbers they were bringing in, but kids were coming into the coaching office EVERY period to buy snacks.
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center
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Post by center on Nov 12, 2019 22:09:01 GMT -6
I think you still try and get HUDL but stick with a basic package. Don’t worry about sideline, assist, and all that stuff.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 12, 2019 23:48:34 GMT -6
I think I would struggle without Hudl. lol I do agree with the not having weekend stuff. I think this allows these types of kids to work during the season. You bring up a great point with fundraising. A school I student taught at allowed the football team to sell snacks. I don't know what type of numbers they were bringing in, but kids were coming into the coaching office EVERY period to buy snacks. It was only 5 years ago when I was at the school I referenced earlier and we did not have HUDL. We couldn't afford it and it was in such a rural place that your only options for internet at home were satellite or dial-up, which could barely handle HUDL, anyway. We either exchanged DVDs or would use Dropbox as kind of a poor man's HUDL. Not that film was all that much use. Small rural schools tend to play in small, rural stadiums where the stands are barely higher than field level. A lot of the film we got was shot by a coach's wife from the highest point in the stadium (maybe the 5th row) and it was hard to tell what was going on half the time. It was a constant struggle to just line people up to film our own games. Sometimes they'd no-show and we were left without film. Socioeconomics wasn't the entire reason, but the lousy socio-economics were a product of the spread-out geography creating terrible logistics for any kind of business or community activity. The labor market sucked--the top professions in the area were "disability," "drug dealer," "gas station attendant," and "unemployed/thief/prostitute/mooch"--those were the roles kids were taught to mold themselves in. If a kid's family was lucky enough to own land and work their @$$es off to eke out a living as a farmer, they were considered "rich" and probably didn't play sports. In such a remote, isolated place, there was really nothing for kids and adults to do there besides church (which was very cliquey and political) or drugs. About 1/3 of kids would use Wednesday evening church as an excuse to skip practice or workouts (even if they didn't go to church), but if a coach said a word to them about it, then it just became a huge cluster about how you were Satan himself trying to steer kids away from God. No coach could ever win that battle. I don't know if that's an issue you'll deal with in a lot of small rural schools, but each place has its own unique quirks. I've never been a fan of weekend stuff in HS anywhere, but it was hard enough getting kids there Mon.-Fri. Towards the end of the season, once injuries started piling up and the schedule only got harder, it was always an adventure just seeing how many kids would show up to practice on any given day. Practice plans became more of a tentative outline than a script.
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Post by mrjvi on Nov 13, 2019 6:05:29 GMT -6
2 things. Blockandtackle-Practice plans became more of a tentative outline than a script. This has been absolutely true. At the more affluent, big school I was at for 20 years-we stuck to the script much more.
Also, making weights important brought lots of kids together (not all yet). This is my 3rd year and we won 2 my first, 3 my 2nd and 6 this season and qualified for sectionals. Strength levels have been clearly shown (recorded on a big white board in the weight room) to have improved drastically so a direct correlation. Plus they like being stronger than everyone else. We have 3 levels for anyone to achieve. Our colors-white, blue, gold. If they get white it's a T-shirt. Blue is a long sleeved shirt and gold is a hoodie. Many are very motivated to get "free" stuff just from getting stronger.
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Post by KYCoach2331 on Nov 13, 2019 10:01:03 GMT -6
1. I’m not sure it can get more poor than where we are at and we fundraise our balls off. I’m not sure exactly what our best ones are but we do a number of different ones. Feel like every few months we’ve raffled something off (that people want). Right now we actually have a deer stand in our end zone that we film from that were raffling off. May make enough money to be a real end zone camera id bet.
Sell to the teachers in the school. Poor areas often the only people that make anything are the teachers. Sell a neat shirt design and get a good deal on printing them and you can make a good amount.
3)We’re blessed to have in school weights. Half of our staff aren’t teaching right now, so we practice every evening as far as practice goes during the summer. We give them the schedule months ahead of the summer to give to their employers.
4) We try to be as good to our kids as possible. Yes that’s obvious but we try to get our kids nice gear, feed them whenever we can, etc. we took them to a P5 football game as a reward for attendance.
We make our program the one to be around. We encourage participation in other sports and support those sports too. It’s got us a few kids from other sports that have really helped us this year.
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Post by coachcb on Nov 13, 2019 10:33:00 GMT -6
I've taught and coached in rural areas for the majority of my career and blockandtackle nailed the struggles in his post. I'll expand a little bit: 1. It's feast or famine when it comes to multiple sport participation. Either the school has a tradition of multiple sport excellence as it's all the kids do or they specialize in one sport. Generally speaking, basketball is king in these rural areas and the kids tend to specialize. This isn't a battle one can typically win for a variety of reasons. 2. Tradition, tradition, tradition (or lack thereof..). The "glory days" guide some of these communities in athletics and it doesn't matter if those days were forty years ago. That is the standard that the coaching staff will be held to in some of these schools. Or it goes the other way: "We've never been good at football and we never will be." If you can turn the corner and win some games, you hope that it'll spark some interest and bring more kids into the program and weight room. But, it really only takes one chitty season for the tradition to go south again. 3. The farming/ranching lifestyle HAS to factor into your thought process. If a kid misses practices because there's an issue on the farm/ranch, then you'd better consider that an "emergency". Because it probably is; the family needs the hand and the kid has to be there. FFA and 4H programs are dominant in these areas as well and you just can't compete with them so you'd better work with them. Kids are going to miss practices for FFA and 4H events and you need to be kosher with that as these programs have a strong community, extracurricular and academic presence.
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Post by coachorr on Nov 13, 2019 12:23:21 GMT -6
I have coached at 7 different places as an assistant over the last 23 years. I am currently at a school that is in a town of a few hundred 45 miles from the nearest town of 65,000 people in Idaho. I drive 40 miles from home. The school has just over 200 kids 9-12. Last year we went 0-8 under a new head coach, we ran the veer out of the pistol and the 80 series wing-t. The new HC did a tremendous job, but we graduated 12 seniors the year before. The years prior to that the school went 8-3, 7-2, 6-3 and 5-4 respectively running the double wing. That coach was also really good and I really enjoyed working in a double system. This year we had about 36 kids in the program and 5 seniors, so the future is bright. 1. We do a hay bale fundraiser where we sell bales of hay to the local community and also we sell a couple of pigs, this netted $30,000 one year; however, was split among all athletics programs. 2. Luckily, we have been able to attract some good assistants. One is a young guy from BYU and is also our athletic trainer. Exceptional enthusiasm and is a great teacher of technique. Another assistant we got from Wyoming via Oklahoma and has been coaching for 30 plus years. Very knowledgeable and took over the JV program (one of my previous roles) and did a phenomenal job. Then there is me, I came to this district, because I teach ESL/ENL and it is just the perfect fit for me. I have been an Oline/Dline coach in some of the biggest programs in our area and now in one of the smallest. Nothing changes for me, I want the program to succeed and the kids to have a great experience. Sadly, we could not put it together last year. 3. The double wing left us with many kids who did not know how to throw a football, however, a great football culture where kids come to practice and work hard and have the basics of blocking and being physical down pretty good, but youth and difference in size did not help our cause. Fear of injuries is an issue. IMHO we could have gone live a bit more. Also, I taught too much stuff that did not help the kids just get off the ball and block. For example, when to call an ace, deuce, trey or quad; created run throughs and caused the kids to think too much. Finally, we just went straight gap-down-backer on a majority of our plays and it helped us significantly. Also, the pistol hurt us a bit due to an occaisional poor snap, (we had to 2 hand it and that made it so the center didnt downblock as well), and the read guy could slow play it more. We are going to widen the splits next year to see if that helps. 4. We have a weights class but since we are in a strong Mormon community there is a lot of pressure to take Seminary. The electives teachers and the counselor fight against the weights class. If we had six periods instead of 5 this would help a lot for all the electives, but those same teachers are against it. Off season workouts are a joke, because every student works in the summer. The HC likes to do a full football workout then weights. I think we would be better served just to offer 45 minutes to an hour of weights in the summer time. Also, kids live far away, so coming to the weight room in the summer can be difficult. 5. JV versus Varsity? We never have enough to scrimmage against, so often we go half line. One of the stipulations for the HC was that he not go live with the varsity kids against the younger kids. Both his enthusiasm and bringing about this policy has helped to recruit some of the players, but I think it has also hurt our physicality. There really isn't a right answer. 6. There are some things we need to help us I believe. Like a new sled. Some coaches would say a sled is a waste of time, but I like it with low numbers and believe it helps kids to get more physical and conditions them specifically for blocking since we are a gap scheme team.
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Post by coachcb on Nov 13, 2019 12:35:32 GMT -6
time. Also, kids live far away, so coming to the weight room in the summer can be difficult. 5. JV versus Varsity? We never have enough to scrimmage against, so often we go half line. One of the stipulations for the HC was that he not go live with the varsity kids against the younger kids. Both his enthusiasm and bringing about this policy has helped to recruit some of the players, but I think it has also hurt our physicality. There really isn't a right answer. This is so true when you're dealing with low numbers. We absolutely couldn't run a JV scout team this year without risking injuries and it wasn't practical anyway as we wouldn't get a good look. Half line came in handy but one glimpse at our film would tell you we paid for it; the BSDE's lost contain on run away and our cut-back discipline was poor. We repped both of those aspects of defense in other small group drills but not getting a live-look hurt us.
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Post by vicvinegar on Nov 13, 2019 14:02:25 GMT -6
Some great points and ideas. I like the hay bale fundraiser. Does someone just donate the bales or do you guys just add a dollar or two to each bale? Same with the pigs. Do you pay for them as piglets and someone volunteers to raise them for you?
As far as the not getting a full look/ 11 on 11, I get that you're not always going to get a great look, but can't you just "thud up"? My current school, we have around 100 kids, but we never go to the ground. It is a way that we have been able to get a full look, without risking injury.
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Post by vince148 on Nov 13, 2019 14:33:17 GMT -6
I am in this situation NOW. We are a very small rural school which is made up of students from two neighboring towns. Total high school enrollment...49. We play 8 man and we barely made it through the season. We had to forfeit 4 games. With injuries and people joining then quitting, I had 2 seniors, 4 juniors, 1 freshman, and 1 sophomore at the end of the season. We have no JV team and don't even have enough for a MS team.
At this point, I'm not real sure what we can do about fundraising. I did the Gatorade deal when I was the powerlifting coach at another school which had about 190 students. That school also plays 8 man, but they have much greater resources than where I'm at now. When I left that school two years ago, a business person in the town bought them almost $15,000 worth of new weight room equipment.
Hopefully, we can get a grant. We need new uniforms. Kids buy their home jerseys and it's now reached the point that we wont have enough for next season.
This was my first season as HC there. It certainly has been a challenge and my team has certainly had to overcome a lot of adversity.
Obviously, first priority is strengthening the kids that I have. Then, we have to figure out how to get more of the 25 or so boys in the school to participate.
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Post by wingtol on Nov 13, 2019 15:57:46 GMT -6
Some great points and ideas. I like the hay bale fundraiser. Does someone just donate the bales or do you guys just add a dollar or two to each bale? Same with the pigs. Do you pay for them as piglets and someone volunteers to raise them for you? As far as the not getting a full look/ 11 on 11, I get that you're not always going to get a great look, but can't you just "thud up"? My current school, we have around 100 kids, but we never go to the ground. It is a way that we have been able to get a full look, without risking injury. I think they mean not getting a full look as in we have 18 kids today at practice, how do you even run a scout team? Numbers will be a huge battle at programs like you describe. We are at a small poor city school now that placed us in a league with small poor rural schools in a couple neighboring counties. There are always programs that struggle with numbers in these situations. If you can’t live without HUDL as some have said better make sure there is even internet service in the community for all and as well get use to the 10 feet off the ground bleacher film shot. Maybe you get lucky and the press box is big enough for your filmer to fit in too. Just going from what you have posted but if you’re at a huge program now and aren’t from an area like you described or worked there before it could be a huge mistake trying to coach somewhere like that.
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Post by fantom on Nov 13, 2019 16:21:49 GMT -6
Some great points and ideas. I like the hay bale fundraiser. Does someone just donate the bales or do you guys just add a dollar or two to each bale? Same with the pigs. Do you pay for them as piglets and someone volunteers to raise them for you? As far as the not getting a full look/ 11 on 11, I get that you're not always going to get a great look, but can't you just "thud up"? My current school, we have around 100 kids, but we never go to the ground. It is a way that we have been able to get a full look, without risking injury. I think they mean not getting a full look as in we have 18 kids today at practice, how do you even run a scout team? Numbers will be a huge battle at programs like you describe. We are at a small poor city school now that placed us in a league with small poor rural schools in a couple neighboring counties. There are always programs that struggle with numbers in these situations. If you can’t live without HUDL as some have said better make sure there is even internet service in the community for all and as well get use to the 10 feet off the ground bleacher film shot. Maybe you get lucky and the press box is big enough for your filmer to fit in too. Just going from what you have posted but if you’re at a huge program now and aren’t from an area like you described or worked there before it could be a huge mistake trying to coach somewhere like that. Deciding if you're willing to live in a poor rural area or drive an hour each way is not a small consideration.
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Post by coachcb on Nov 13, 2019 16:46:16 GMT -6
Some great points and ideas. I like the hay bale fundraiser. Does someone just donate the bales or do you guys just add a dollar or two to each bale? Same with the pigs. Do you pay for them as piglets and someone volunteers to raise them for you? As far as the not getting a full look/ 11 on 11, I get that you're not always going to get a great look, but can't you just "thud up"? My current school, we have around 100 kids, but we never go to the ground. It is a way that we have been able to get a full look, without risking injury.
It just doesn't work when your scout team is filled with freshmen who haven't even hit puberty yet. We can't have our 5'10'', 225lb all-conference guard/LB pulling and looking to block a 5'3'', 120lb freshman CB whose voice hasn't broken yet. We tried a variety of different drills to get our guys a somewhat live look but there were always BAD mismatches somewhere.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 13, 2019 18:01:27 GMT -6
Some great points and ideas. I like the hay bale fundraiser. Does someone just donate the bales or do you guys just add a dollar or two to each bale? Same with the pigs. Do you pay for them as piglets and someone volunteers to raise them for you? As far as the not getting a full look/ 11 on 11, I get that you're not always going to get a great look, but can't you just "thud up"? My current school, we have around 100 kids, but we never go to the ground. It is a way that we have been able to get a full look, without risking injury. As others have said, it's not about full contact practice so much as it is lacking the numbers to even go 11 on 11 AND also having insane mismatches or incompetence on scout that make it more of a liability than a tool. You can mitigate the lack of numbers somewhat by focusing on half-line and group periods, which is what you have to do, but you still wind up with stuff like running 7 on 7 with OL as DBs or doing an inside run drill with WRs as OL. Not only are the players physically mismatched (and usually you're stuck relying on some who can't read a scout card or be trusted to even go the right direction), but they don't know the techniques of the scout positions they're playing and it gives a terrible practice look. In some of the places in our state that are 6-12 or K-12, the "JV" may actually be MS kids and you might even have 8th graders starting on varsity out of necessity. Now picture how weak the non-starters must be to not be able to beat out the 8th grade/freshman starters and picture those kids getting clobbered by your better senior players each day. Then you get the days where you come to practice and you don't have a single QB, or you run a 4-3 defense but only have 1 LB there that day. Then the next day you're missing 3 of the 7 healthy OL you've got. Etc. It gets frustrating.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 13, 2019 18:19:37 GMT -6
Tradition, tradition, tradition (or lack thereof..). The "glory days" guide some of these communities in athletics and it doesn't matter if those days were forty years ago. That is the standard that the coaching staff will be held to in some of these schools. Or it goes the other way: "We've never been good at football and we never will be." If you can turn the corner and win some games, you hope that it'll spark some interest and bring more kids into the program and weight room. But, it really only takes one chitty season for the tradition to go south again. This is a biggie. HS football isn't something new. If a school or community wanted to be good at it, they've had plenty of time to get that worked out. If they haven't ever done so, or haven't done it in a long time, it's probably because they simply can't or won't. The glory days are always more glorious to remember than they actually were. In some places, the glory days might be the year they upset some big school but went 2-8. Or it might be a multi-year run 30 years ago when they had when a stud (and maybe his brother or brothers) came through the school and just dominated everyone through superior genetics. Small town politics being what they are, even if you come in and lead them to success they've never had before, the people will always want a homer they grew up with. Win the first playoff game in school history and then go through a down cycle of talent and they're likely to run you out of town so they can bring All-Conference Bubba the Mayor's son back to teach those kids how to "really" play football.
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Post by vicvinegar on Nov 13, 2019 20:42:38 GMT -6
Just going from what you have posted but if you’re at a huge program now and aren’t from an area like you described or worked there before it could be a huge mistake trying to coach somewhere like that. I get what you and some others are saying. I have never really had to deal with extremely low numbers. I think the lowest I've dealt with was around 40 (school of about 600). Everywhere else I have coached has been 2 platooned. Yes, I do currently coach in the richest area in the state, but I have also coached inner-city kids who didn't have electricity or were living in a car. I grew up/played in the sticks. So I've been lucky enough to see the challenges of all the above. I guess I like the places we have been discussing, because for one, these kids need structure and a good football program is something that can give that to them. Secondly, IF (a big if) you can get everyone to buy in, these are the types of kids that will bust their a** for you. If you're able to win in a small town like that, there is nothing more exciting than an entire town being behind you and taking pride in their football team. A guy I used to coach for started at a place like we have been discussing. Everyone told him not to go there, that he couldn't win there. He turned the program around. I have just always wanted to do something similar.
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Post by coachorr on Nov 14, 2019 13:46:28 GMT -6
Some great points and ideas. I like the hay bale fundraiser. Does someone just donate the bales or do you guys just add a dollar or two to each bale? Same with the pigs. Do you pay for them as piglets and someone volunteers to raise them for you? As far as the not getting a full look/ 11 on 11, I get that you're not always going to get a great look, but can't you just "thud up"? My current school, we have around 100 kids, but we never go to the ground. It is a way that we have been able to get a full look, without risking injury. I will look into the fundraisers. I think they were both donated.
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Post by freezeoption on Nov 15, 2019 2:40:56 GMT -6
Have you really been to a small school? Talking about 75 kids through 9-12, or dealt with getting supplies was like having to rob a bank? Heck, there are schools smaller than that. Not having enough paint so that had to paint every 10 yards from 20 to 20 then every 5 on in to end zone. People on here talk like here is what I do. How about you just go do it. One, don't buy because chances are you won't be there long. Pay is usually terrible. You'll piss someone of on school board, administration, town, whatever and they will be after you. You'll have 6 or 7 different preps that you have to plan for. Rather than talk about it do it. Ive had some great times and also been places that they should have burnt the place down. Go do it and get your hands dirty. Then talk about it.
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Post by **** on Nov 15, 2019 6:31:35 GMT -6
Have you really been to a small school? Talking about 75 kids through 9-12, or dealt with getting supplies was like having to rob a bank? Heck, there are schools smaller than that. Not having enough paint so that had to paint every 10 yards from 20 to 20 then every 5 on in to end zone. People on here talk like here is what I do. How about you just go do it. One, don't buy because chances are you won't be there long. Pay is usually terrible. You'll piss someone of on school board, administration, town, whatever and they will be after you. You'll have 6 or 7 different preps that you have to plan for. Rather than talk about it do it. Ive had some great times and also been places that they should have burnt the place down. Go do it and get your hands dirty. Then talk about it. This.
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Post by vicvinegar on Nov 15, 2019 8:35:27 GMT -6
Have you really been to a small school? Talking about 75 kids through 9-12, or dealt with getting supplies was like having to rob a bank? Heck, there are schools smaller than that. Not having enough paint so that had to paint every 10 yards from 20 to 20 then every 5 on in to end zone. People on here talk like here is what I do. How about you just go do it. One, don't buy because chances are you won't be there long. Pay is usually terrible. You'll piss someone of on school board, administration, town, whatever and they will be after you. You'll have 6 or 7 different preps that you have to plan for. Rather than talk about it do it. Ive had some great times and also been places that they should have burnt the place down. Go do it and get your hands dirty. Then talk about it. I haven't. I felt like I said that in my last post. My post said rural and poor. It did not say anything about small. My original post even says 500 to 600 kids. There is only three schools in my state that plays football with an enrollment of less than 200, and one of them is the school of the deaf. So that would make it a little difficult to "go do it". I like to try to be prepared. So when I do take that step, I want to have ideas of fundraisers for these types of areas, ways to build a staff in a rural setting, the best way to create a schedule where players will likely have to work, and recruit kids from areas like this. I apologize for asking a forum for ideas before I just "go do it". I tip my hat to coaches (I assume like yourself) that supply kids in areas like you described with an opportunity to play this great sport. It is Friday during playoff football, and we are still playing. So I'll have a great Friday, I hope you do the same!
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Post by coachcb on Nov 15, 2019 9:46:40 GMT -6
vicvinegarTo be honest, it's difficult to be prepared if you're looking at taking over a small-rural school. In any size school, there are things working for the program and things working against it. In small school, those factors are amplified greatly by the shear fact that it's a smaller population. You really never have a firm idea of what you're walking into until you're smack dab in the middle of it. You may get all kinds of great ideas for fundraising from guys on this site but you don't know if it'll take in the community or the school, simply because there's no as many people. We were told that running a fun, haunted house at the local fall carnival would be a great fundraiser. we put a lot of time and effort into it and barely had two-dozen people go through it. What we didn't know was that the local fall carnival hadn't been well attended in a long time. Building a staff in a rural area is a complete crap shoot and it's honestly something that you don't have a whole lot of control over. You'll be lucky if you have a small group of applicants to pick from; you'll basically inherit whoever is willing to coach. The best assistant in our program is an assistant at the middle school level. The guy knows his stuff, he's a great coach and an even better guy. He would've been a fantastic addition to the varsity staff but he has no desire to coach high school ball.
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