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Post by wolverine55 on Mar 13, 2023 13:34:38 GMT -6
I just hung it up as a head coach this off season. I am going to switch with my assistant who is the head track coach and I am his assistant there so it will be a smooth change. I told the kids it will just be him yelling at them now instead of me. I just couldn't justify or do the year round thing anymore. Chasing kids to get to weight room, get and stay eligible, not get in trouble at school etc. It just gets to be a lot. (before anyone says you should establish culture or anything like that I am at an urban school and those of you who have done it will understand) I've had one summer off (the covid year) and that was the first time in 23 summers at the time I didn't have to worry about doing weight room or 7 on 7. Sunday 7 on 7 and Mon-Thurs weights with maybe 2 weeks off in the summer, just don't want to do it anymore. I will show up the first day of practice, coach and then as soon as the last play is run in practice I will be headed to the car. I will help during the school day with the administrative stuff and with the kids but I am 44, I want to fish and play golf and travel. I told the kids this and its funny they are like "we totally get it coach". This make sense to anyone? Just don't want the year round grind anymore? I've said this before but the summer stuff is why I'm pretty close to being done. I can handle in-season grind. There should be an in-season grind. However, some years it feels like the season starts June 1st. |
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Post by CanyonCoach on Mar 13, 2023 14:22:22 GMT -6
Welcome to the old school teams in our immediate area: Coaches tenure
1. 43 years
2. 34 years
3. 25 years
4. 13 years- new program 2nd coach in school history first one was there 6 years.
5. 12 years (me). This will be year 20 coaching in the district. The longest coaching tenure in school history. 1st to survive a decade.
6. 9 years the only coach the school has ever had.
7. The next town west has an alum coach who is approaching 30 years.
8. Next town south coach is at 20+
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Post by larrymoe on Mar 13, 2023 16:02:39 GMT -6
I just hung it up as a head coach this off season. I am going to switch with my assistant who is the head track coach and I am his assistant there so it will be a smooth change. I told the kids it will just be him yelling at them now instead of me. I just couldn't justify or do the year round thing anymore. Chasing kids to get to weight room, get and stay eligible, not get in trouble at school etc. It just gets to be a lot. (before anyone says you should establish culture or anything like that I am at an urban school and those of you who have done it will understand) I've had one summer off (the covid year) and that was the first time in 23 summers at the time I didn't have to worry about doing weight room or 7 on 7. Sunday 7 on 7 and Mon-Thurs weights with maybe 2 weeks off in the summer, just don't want to do it anymore. I will show up the first day of practice, coach and then as soon as the last play is run in practice I will be headed to the car. I will help during the school day with the administrative stuff and with the kids but I am 44, I want to fish and play golf and travel. I told the kids this and its funny they are like "we totally get it coach". This make sense to anyone? Just don't want the year round grind anymore? I've said this before but the summer stuff is why I'm pretty close to being done. I can handle in-season grind. There should be an in-season grind. However, some years it feels like the season starts June 1st. June 1st? I felt like the last few years I was in it started January 1st. |
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Post by 3rdandlong on Mar 13, 2023 21:26:29 GMT -6
I believe I've mentioned the problem on another thread. But, I think it was Bill Walsh who said that you lose 10% of your support/popularity every year. So that first year when everyone loved you after you turned the program around by going 5-5 and stayed competitive when you lost to a local rival who traditionally dominates turns into a community that thinks you suck and that the program needs a spark after an 8-2 season where you needed overtime to beat the previously mentioned local rival.
And if you stay true to who you are, the same reason why people loved you will be the same reason why they start to hate you.
So when everyone was praising you for bringing discipline and structure; 10 years later, they'll be criticizing you and saying that you belittle kids.
Or the people who were praising you for building relationships with kids and being relatable will quickly turn to people who say you don't have boundaries and are too buddy-buddy with the kids.
Those people who liked that new hard-nosed style of offense? That'll turn into people who want more modern creativity.
those people who loved the facemelter you brought with you? They'll say that the school needs to run good ol' fashion student body right, student body left.
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Post by senatorblutarsky on Mar 13, 2023 21:59:53 GMT -6
I would be interested in getting opinions on just how much "year round work" took place on average in the 60s/70s maybe the 80s. At least just for football. Also interested in how many coaches were NOT educators back then. I am betting it was few. I have an uncle who was a long time (and very successful) basketball coach... early 1970s-late 90s/early 2000s. He said a lot had changed and there were so many more demands for time with summer programs, etc.... He just didn't want to do that and finished his career teaching while coaching JH sports.
My experience playing in HS (80s) was much like what fantom and bucksweepdotcom described... except we weren't any good... maybe that's why I became sold on the "outwork the other guy" philosophy. Getting your @$$ kicked will have that effect on you, I guess.
When I started out teaching/coaching this is when things started changing regarding off-season commitments... in my area at least. If you wanted to be good, you had to put time in. That "time" seemed to be more every year.
I remember someone in college telling me to teach because I would get "summers off". I wish I could remember who that was so I could punch him in the mouth...
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Post by coachd5085 on Mar 14, 2023 6:08:40 GMT -6
I would be interested in getting opinions on just how much "year round work" took place on average in the 60s/70s maybe the 80s. At least just for football. Also interested in how many coaches were NOT educators back then. I am betting it was few. I have an uncle who was a long time (and very successful) basketball coach... early 1970s-late 90s/early 2000s. He said a lot had changed and there were so many more demands for time with summer programs, etc.... He just didn't want to do that and finished his career teaching while coaching JH sports.
My experience playing in HS (80s) was much like what fantom and bucksweepdotcom described... except we weren't any good... maybe that's why I became sold on the "outwork the other guy" philosophy. Getting your @$$ kicked will have that effect on you, I guess.
When I started out teaching/coaching this is when things started changing regarding off-season commitments... in my area at least. If you wanted to be good, you had to put time in. That "time" seemed to be more every year.
I remember someone in college telling me to teach because I would get "summers off". I wish I could remember who that was so I could punch him in the mouth...
I think you just described the arms race issue that coaches have plagued the season with. Want to win? Work harder, but that equals more time which leads the opponents to put in even MORE time and so forth |
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Post by coachwoodall on Mar 14, 2023 6:21:26 GMT -6
The off season time issue is a relative thing... just like the type of offense you run. If the teams you have to beat are doing stuff in winter/spring/summer, then you better either be beating them regularly or doing what they are doing.
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Post by coachd5085 on Mar 14, 2023 7:29:14 GMT -6
The off season time issue is a relative thing... just like the type of offense you run. If the teams you have to beat are doing stuff in winter/spring/summer, then you better either be beating them regularly or doing what they are doing. And then… coaches complain about the time spent. That is the trick isn’t it. |
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Post by senatorblutarsky on Mar 14, 2023 8:23:06 GMT -6
The off season time issue is a relative thing... just like the type of offense you run. If the teams you have to beat are doing stuff in winter/spring/summer, then you better either be beating them regularly or doing what they are doing. And then… coaches complain about the time spent. That is the trick isn’t it. One thing I've tried to do in the last several years is to work "smarter, not harder". We have a 3 day team camp and 2 evening mini-camp (so we know what we are doing at team camp). We lift and speed/agility train 4x a week (one day is a make-up day). That's it. We used to have position work, 7 on 7... and a 10 day camp. It just got to be too much... for the players too. I still want them to be able to work, go to the lake, etc. during the summer. I see other sports burning kids out... Baseball we play 20 spring games and 50+ in the summer. Basketball has summer league, AAU... Our numbers are terrible in all sports... and we have programs going to state constantly. We had 11 girls play basketball this year (after qualifying for the state tournament last year). We had 15 (only two who played football) in boys basketball this year – and they too qualified for the state tournament- not an easy thing to do in our state. We had always played 3 levels of basketball (C-JV-Varsity). We didn't this year. I was complaining about our numbers (mid 30s) until I saw that only one team in our league had more than us (by two). There is a fine line between work/effort/commitment and overkill that burns everyone out. I’ve become a big believer in “Feed The Cats”… and I recently really bought in to the Wenning warmups… and to be honest our workload has been more geared to healthy > strength for years. Between the entitlement (for some), the demands from other activities (for others), I want our guys to be excited and ready for the season- so I would say we’ve pulled back a lot over the last few years, and I guess relative to others our size we are holding our own. But I still feel like we are losing athletes and coaches at a pretty alarming rate. I’m not sure I have any more answers at this point; maybe there just aren’t any (and I hope I am wrong about that). |
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Post by coachwoodall on Mar 14, 2023 8:52:31 GMT -6
The off season time issue is a relative thing... just like the type of offense you run. If the teams you have to beat are doing stuff in winter/spring/summer, then you better either be beating them regularly or doing what they are doing. And then… coaches complain about the time spent. That is the trick isn’t it. Not all coaches, but yeah it's more of publicity thing... or big pecker contest...... When I worked at HS B, we lifted MWF and did football drills TTh in the summer. Our SS coach would always tell the kids we work harder than HS D b/c they only worked M-Th. I'm now at HS S with a new HC that was at HS C during that same time frame. Our now HC says that he used to tell his kids at HS C that they worked smarter and harder than the kids at HS B b/c they could get just as much if not more done from M-Th and then have a 3 day weekend..... |
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Post by 3rdandlong on Mar 14, 2023 10:02:24 GMT -6
As far as off-season is concerned, I think you need to make sure you have an appropriate balance. Not just for yourself as a coach, but also for the well-being of your program. I know of teams who are having fully non-padded practices from February-July. Sure those kids might look great in summer 7 on 7, but they peak early and get burned out; so "outworking the other guy" can be counter productive.
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