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Post by hsrose on May 24, 2018 10:35:29 GMT -6
Never been a teacher, will never, ever, know the secret handshake of the educational world. Have a staff of 8 coaches and 3 volunteers. Only 1 is on-campus and he's an assistant principal. 1 other is in a similar position at a nearby continuation-type school. But he's #2 in tenure there of guys who coach so he has to cover for #1 so he's usually late to practices and such. The coaches on staff are a home-care guy, a prison warden, physical therapist that is still in school, a ski resort maintenance guy, a UPS supervisor, a business owner, a construction guy. 3 guys have kids in the program. I'm a software system engineer with an aerospace company and I work from home/the office in the school library. I start at 6AM and am done by 3 so I can work the coaching aspect.
We are a rural area in California, 700'ish in the school. There are 2 former football HC's on staff who want nothing to do with football any more. Two more are former assistants who coach/help other sports. Coaches are few and far between because of the size of the area and the time commitment. So the staff issue is that we are coming from disparate backgrounds, we're not all on campus with the same schedule, the same administration, the same kids all day. When we meet as a staff there is always 1-2-3 guys that get off work late/get called in/whatever so we usually don't have everyone there. From that aspect I am at a distinct disadvantage in staff unity/direction/capabilities/motivations. And I know that I am not alone, there are a lot of schools, some that are larger and much better athlete-wise, that are in the same boat with off-campus coaches.
Not a lot of teacher turnover. When someone new does come in coaching is not part of their hiring discussion. It's not an expectation for what they will be doing.
It's really hard to be in this situation, but it's not all roses for the school either. They are losing control of what is being taught to the athletes, they are getting who they can get, and are happy to have them. There is no unity on the head coaches because we have nothing in common other than a set of keys and what we have to do to be coaches.
Coaching as a non-educator/administrator is certainly feasible. You have to have an understanding HC, a school that will work with you, a job situation that will work with you, and a larger than life desire to coach/learn/work with players. You get all those, it works. Miss those and it's a living hell for everyone.
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Post by hsrose on May 21, 2018 7:16:54 GMT -6
Lived apart for 4 years, about 150 miles apart. Son graduated HS but needed his 5th year at a JC before getting started. Daughter was coming into HS so it was a good break point. Wife needed to be with her mother who was 88+ and had a big house and property. So she and daughter went to live at her moms home where we are living now, son and I stayed in the city. I coached, son did JC, she helped her mom, daughter went to smaller school. It was hard but I traded that bitch wife for a sweet girlfriend, she got rid of that lazy husband and got a new boyfriend. Found that when we were together all the daily crap we do went away. Weren't worried about the garbage or washing the car or anything. Focused on time together with family and it was better. Downside is that I was coaching football so I only got to watch my daughter play HS volleyball once a year when we had our bye. I don't think we could/would have done this if the kids were younger, but it was the perfect time to make the move like that.
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Post by hsrose on May 10, 2018 12:58:21 GMT -6
No punt return team, no fg/pat team, no punt team. Offense takes care of punt (quick kick) and Defense goes after every kick (no returns). I've looked at that approach. How does that go for you guys? Schematics? Any details? I need something to put on my whiteboard and get my purple and orange and brown pens working on. Thanks
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Post by hsrose on May 4, 2018 9:33:29 GMT -6
OL Cheer from back in the day that he might have taken to heart: Ex Lax, Relax, Open up the Hole. Brown Tide, Brown Tide, Roll, Roll, Roll.
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Post by hsrose on May 3, 2018 9:00:26 GMT -6
I download stuff from freeplaymusic.com. They have a lot of music that is meant for background type/real videos. They have a license thing you have to do. No money is involved for what I/we do. Meaning they have a lot of music that has no vocals and big beats and is rock-/rap-/folk-/hip-hop-based. They have variations of the songs from 1-minute to full song length. I download it, build a couple of 3-hour playlists, connect the phone to the PA speaker, put it on shuffle. That way I know that none of the stuff will be explicit, it won't have lyrics, it won't be the same stuff all the time in the same sequence.
I prefer practice music as noise, adds energy to the sessions, makes us work on communications in high-noise environment. I also have the time clock added on top of this so we have the practice schedule playing as well. I find that when the music has vocals folks start listening to the lyrics/singing/dancing rather than concentrating on their drills and such.
I like the noise, I like the energy, I don't like the lyrics.
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Post by hsrose on May 2, 2018 13:21:12 GMT -6
It's not just at school.
Had one of my coaches get SnapChatted at a local pizza parlor with his family. One of the girls that worked there took a shot of him with a slice in his hand a beer in front of him. She posted it, he never knew until a football player that was in her group let him know. Kid was laughing about it, the coach eating and having a beer.
The counselor in the next door office doesn't do anything in the local area, no dining out, no wine tasting, no luncheons, nothing. Doesn't even grocery shop in the area. Doesn't want anyone to be able to say anything about her being out and buying/drinking wine or anything.
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Post by hsrose on Apr 25, 2018 12:43:43 GMT -6
The difficulty with Seconds Pro is that it's pretty well fully customizable which means you can get caught up in changing segments and names and times and all that. At one point I had a 'workout' (practice) where I had it call out each segment 'Now starting period 13, punt return'. That lasted for a bit until I got tired of having to change everything when I did a new workout/practice. Now I just have it repeat the 5 minute rotations. You can change the time, have it play specific sounds end of the timer, all kinds of stuff. Now I've backed off to just being really simple with it. It also has a web interface but I haven't played with that. Apparently you can setup your workouts on a web site and share it to the iPhone, which might make the customization easier.
Visual - The problem I have is coaches that knowingly ignore the timing. They don't think it applies to them so they plead 'I didn't hear the timer...'. Now that I know that it's not going to fly anymore.
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Post by hsrose on Apr 24, 2018 13:43:26 GMT -6
I use a app timer on my iPhone called Seconds Pro. It is used mostly for workouts but works for timing 5-minute segments for practices. It has a countdown feature that will countdown the last 5 seconds or something. And it will come in over other music you have playing. So I set it up with one of the portable PA speakers, get the music going, and start the timer when we start. After that the music plays (Pandora, iTunes, internet radio) and at every 5 minutes you get the call out that the period has ended.
You can set it up with text for each period so you can have it say 'Starting period 5' or whatever.
The issue I have with not having a segment timer is that you can lose track of which period you are starting. You know the period just ended/started, but which one is it? Without the visual cue on the timer it can get confusing.
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Post by hsrose on Apr 4, 2018 7:18:52 GMT -6
I'm looking for details on how folks have run casino nights. Our Boosters are looking at doing this since the guy that ran the golf tournament for the past 10+ years has left the area. The local golf people are happy that the drunken mess that this had become will no longer take place. The Boosters know the basic concepts and operations and such, but are looking for any details, gotchas, watch out for's, good things to know. What else did you do at the event, food, other activities, etc. What makes this event work really well, and what makes it the fundraiser from hell.
Basically doing the 'due diligence' on the event. Nobody we've talked with can remember anyone doing a casino night around here so nobody has any lessons learned about hosting one of these.
Feel free to PM me or send links.
Thanks
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Post by hsrose on Mar 21, 2018 20:22:57 GMT -6
For the engineer comment above.
Signs I’ve seen on aerospace engineers cubicles - Hardware is just a place for me to put my software. If it’s not on fire it’s a software problem. First rule of manufacturing - make it work.
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Post by hsrose on Mar 19, 2018 20:30:53 GMT -6
Here is a link to the latest version of the fundraising document I put together quite some time back. I keep updating it and have included some items from this thread. drive.google.com/open?id=1oHD-dX7U2nRK9ynGACKipvYdOZPSWPSuLet me know if this doesn't work, I'm new to the Google Drive thing and I think this works. But...
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Post by hsrose on Mar 15, 2018 0:42:20 GMT -6
In CA, San Joaquin section. Spring practice is in May, graduation is June 1st, summer workouts start June 4th, and 1st day of fall practice is July 23. School starts August 15, first game is August 17.
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Post by hsrose on Feb 27, 2018 19:13:32 GMT -6
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Post by hsrose on Feb 27, 2018 19:03:39 GMT -6
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Post by hsrose on Feb 27, 2018 18:52:55 GMT -6
We're coming up on year 6 of doing it ourselves and it's been great for us. We're in a smaller community so more folks know each other, but I did it in Fremont, CA and San Ramon, CA, as well.
Design - Bah, no need to be a designer. Put your logo in the upper right corner, the schedule on the left side. Put the price and your website on the right below the logo. Use school colors on the front. We are purple and gold so 1 year is purple, the next is yellow/gold. We're going gold foil this year at no extra cost. The back is simply a list of the vendors. I get about 13 each year, that's what fits.
Work - You would be surprised how many smaller shops there are that are willing to work with you. Chains, yeah, they have to check with corporate but they will work with you. I've got Burger King (free Whopper with any combo meal), Subway (free small soda and cookie with any 1' sandwich), and Round Table (10% off any purchase, excluding booze). Also got a 5% off of groceries at a local store that has 3 locations, good at any location.
It's work to do this. But the Boosters pay $0.65'ish for the cards, I get 1,200 for about $780 or so. We bring in $5k each year. Takes probably 20 hours total time to get the vendors identified and confirmed. If we were with a 3rd party (and after talking with the vendors, they don't like getting calls from a company asking them to pay to be on a discount card) they would take, what, 30-50% of the total? So for the 20'ish hours that we coaches put in, mostly me, the team gets to keep $1,500-2,500 more than if we'd done a 3rd party, which is $75-125 per hour. To me that's a fair exchange.
My experience with the services is that they do all the leg work, that's true, and they do a very good job at it. But they also hit the vendors up for a fee to be on the card. So not only are they collecting from the players but from the vendors as well. Not begrudging them that margin at all, it's a market and they do a good job with it. But one of the things that I do like about this is getting out and talking with the vendors, making contacts with them.
Finding Vendors - I broke up the expected buyers into 3 levels, kids/young adults, people with kids, people without kids. And then identified the physical areas around here, did the matrix, and then mapped in the vendors that we coaches could think of to go into the boxes. That really helped identify who we might approach and still have value for the buyer.
Ain't nothing for free. I'd rather my coaches and I do some leg work than have a chunk of what the kids raise go to someone else. I'm having a hard time justifying doing the (non-Hudl) email fundraiser just because of that % that goes to the vendor.
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Post by hsrose on Feb 13, 2018 21:09:35 GMT -6
Wait a phukin minute, you got your head run over? Yep. Apparently I was playing in the front yard, sandy soil, and the visiting lady backed over me. I’ve got the clipping about it. Had it been hard soil I would not be here. May explain my 7-7/8 size head. Mom said they could see the tire tread on my scalp for about 2 months.
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Post by hsrose on Feb 13, 2018 17:00:52 GMT -6
Played 4 years in HS, 2 years meat squad in college. Turn 60 this year. Only knee injury I got was from over-30 coed soccer. Still throw passes to receivers. Got hit hard enough in HS to bend my facemask back almost to my nose. No real issues right now. I got nothing that I can attribute directly to football.
But I also got my head run over by a neighbor lady when I was 18 months old so if I've got anything... oh look! a squirrel...
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Post by hsrose on Feb 13, 2018 11:36:23 GMT -6
I've only had this happen once with a kid that played water polo and football. Water polo was mostly morning practices so it wasn't a big deal. We had just gotten into it when we had our 1st home football game. Kid is a bit tired pre-game, as kids get, but played a good game. Afterwards as we're walking off the field he basically starts collapsing on the field. Get the EMT's, already walking with parents so they are there, goes to the ER. Kid is dehydrated and exhausted. Apparently he had been in a 2-day water polo tournament and had finished his last game like an hour before the football game. So he had played 6-7 water polo games and then came out for our game. Never told any of the staff that this was going on, we had no idea as it was an away tournament. He choose football after that, I didn't have to force anything. That was the last time I've had that issue.
Several weeks later another parent used that as an example of how I didn't care about the players, how I was a bad coach. That's the same parent, that, I kid you not, got a Dr. note for his son that said he could play football but could not get into a 3-point stance because it stressed his back. Had him at OT for a couple of games, he was also our Sam, got 250-300 yards rushing each game with him there. Dad wanted him to be the B-back in our flexbone offense so he got 'hurt', went to the Dr, and came back with the note. Had to remove him from the OL, averaged less than 210 per game after that.
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Post by hsrose on Feb 9, 2018 10:51:49 GMT -6
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Post by hsrose on Feb 4, 2018 22:55:06 GMT -6
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Post by hsrose on Jan 25, 2018 13:25:53 GMT -6
Saw a staff one time several years ago where they were each wearing different pants/slacks and various polos from the team. But they all had the staff running shoes, bright orange. So they all looked like an ok staff with the various combinations, until you saw the feet.
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Post by hsrose on Jan 24, 2018 21:40:10 GMT -6
Stickers are basically tribal markings, a way to identify those in the tribe and indicate rank in the tribe. Plus they're just cool to put something in the notebook after the season.
When I played in the mid-70's we got defensive stickers for points earned. Something like 3 points for an unassisted tackle, 2/1 for an assist, 4 for a turnover or sack, more along those lines. Got a sticker for every 10 points. Offense was team, 100 yard rusher and the OL got a sticker.
We haven't had stickers here but I'm bringing them back this season. Will include stickers for academics, off-season weight room, leadership, and then the game stickers. I hear that you reward the performance you want, I want the players to participate in off-season, do community service, lead, all those good things plus perform in the games. And I want those that perform to be rewarded in public. This is what I want, I want you to make tackles/blocks, and when you do that, you earn a star/skull/football and are recognized in front of the others.
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Post by hsrose on Jan 23, 2018 23:08:41 GMT -6
Our head maintenance chief chased a couple of players off the field this past weekend for using one of the weighted pull sleds. Talked with me about it and says the warranty has a clause that says the company is not liable for any damages caused by using sleds of any type on the field. Was just put in last summer.
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Post by hsrose on Jan 19, 2018 18:19:36 GMT -6
Ok, initial comments on What I Would Do If I Were King...
Title and data consistency - Figure out the top searches and then standardize your titles and content. I'm not sure how you have the video access organized but assuming its in some kind of database, go through and do a search and replace on things. Change all the 425's to 4-2-5, or vice versa, doesn't matter. But figure out what we coaches are searching on and standardize it. Nothing more frustrating than doing a search and getting a few results and then realizing that there are a lot more results with a change in the search string. Nobody cares what the standardization is, just make it so that when I search on something that I'm getting everything along those lines.
Add a an advanced search capability like here on the Hueyboard. Let me put in additional criteria other than just a single text string. Let me isolate the search to clinic notes, videos, and eClinics.
When I get a search result make it more along the lines of a database result/YouTube. Give me the video thumbnail, the year it was posted, author, title, time, and the description. Make them separate so I can read the fool things at a glance without having to read the whole thing.
I like that when I go to a video there are Suggested Items there, but I'm not sure how relevant they are. I did a search on 4-2-5 and the first video is "The 4-2-5 Defense - 4-2-5 Zone Coverage" and the related items seem to be for Spread Wing-T. When I get to the video there is no description/information so I don't know if the related items are really related or not. Keep feeding me more information about the video as I get closer to it, not less.
I've done databases where we indexed every single word of every document. You might want to do that here to make the searching that much better.
Also, flag a video if I've watched it or one of the staff has watched it. You've got our team account, you know who is logged in. Let us know who has seen what.
Let me flag videos for the staff and send them to the coach/coaches. You've got our emails, let me find a video that I like and add it to my library/watch list and/or the staff watch list. I might not be able to watch the video right now but give me a space where I can add it to a list that I can watch later. Saves me having to re-search the same thing again and again.
I don't have any issues with the GUI, that seems operable. But I just generally want more information about the product than whats shown now.
You've got the gold here, now let us mine it a lot more effectively. Give us the tools that will let us more quickly find what we need, and then share it with the other guys on the staff.
More later.
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Post by hsrose on Jan 17, 2018 18:52:28 GMT -6
Oh, be still my beating heart! As a software system engineer geek, I can have some fun with that. I've been wanting to provide feedback for quite some time. I'll see what I can come up with.
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Post by hsrose on Jan 16, 2018 18:18:24 GMT -6
The sports here don’t even give out the letters anymore. If the kid earned a letter he goes to see the AD and he gives it to him. Cost savings since nobody wears the jackets anymore.
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Post by hsrose on Jan 12, 2018 16:27:38 GMT -6
We will be doing a real game program this season and I'm trying to figure pricing for the ads. I'm not having the players get the ads, I'm working directly with the businesses.
For those of you that produce/publish/sell game programs (and I'm talking 30-40 pages, full color, full bleed, heavy cover type publications, not the bad copies of copies we've had here the past 5+ years), what do you charge for the ads? I'm looking to go with 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, and full page add sizes, starting with $50 for a 1/8 ad (just a bit larger than a business card). We're a small, rural area spread over about 30 miles along a mountain highway so we don't have a lot of national chains here, mostly local guys that are parents and such.
What's your ad revenue model?
Also, any recommendations of online print shops?
Thanks
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Post by hsrose on Jan 9, 2018 16:20:45 GMT -6
Dipping - I got 'reminded' in my review with the AD and Supt. that coaches dipping at practice is a no-no and almost lost the coach. Much less the kids. Drugs, tobacco, alcohol is serious here. Small rural school in the foothills. Lots of Ag kids here. 1st offense is weekly counseling for 6 weeks, 1 day/week, right after school. Practice/games don't matter. 2nd and suspended for the season, possibly the next sport season if multi-sport player, 3rd and done with all sports for the rest of high school.
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Post by hsrose on Dec 23, 2017 9:03:23 GMT -6
Some additional articles on Daniels heading to USC. Last year CIF 'did away' with the athletically motivated transfers. Still a couple of areas that can hinder a move, but pretty much did away with it being athletically motivated. So the word on one of the boards is that a new QB will be moving in before the uniforms are washed and put away. Daniels is, per the articles, 2-time Gatorade state player of the year (Frosh, Soph), and National Player of the year as a junior. 15-0 record this year, 72% passing completion rate, national champion. What else can he do? Article says that he's 17 so he's on track age-wise. www.maxpreps.com/news/wsb5ieHNdkyYlL9BQ25KAA/mater-dei-quarterback-jt-daniels-joining-class-of-2018.htmFrom a gossip board here in NorCal - QB Bryce Young, LA Cathredal HS, with offers from Alabama, Oklahoma and USC, (as a sophomore) is expected to transfer in to Mater Dei. www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-high-school-sports-updates-usc-commit-j-t-daniels-is-the-gatorade-1513714838-htmlstory.htmlwww.latimes.com/sports/highschool/varsity-times/la-sp-mater-dei-daniels-20171215-story.htmlEven doing the 'Transfer of the year' now - www.latimes.com/la-sp-high-school-sports-updates-the-transfer-of-the-year-in-prep-1511895581-htmlstory.html
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Post by hsrose on Dec 13, 2017 22:55:33 GMT -6
I played HS in the mid-70's and remember doing 7v7 against other schools. But it was to get work on passing and defense, no competitions or anything. Coaches actually set scenarios - 3rd and long type of thing. This was at Syrup U as a matter of fact.
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