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Post by CoachWeitz on Dec 16, 2015 8:13:18 GMT -6
We are in the back end of an arms race where everyone in our league pushed and got a bunch of facilities built largely as a result of the success of the school I'm currently at (I wasn't here before). I don't know that we're on the same scale as you guys but I can say it is a very unique situation and there are very real, specialized problems that come with it.
First priority has to be turf, luckly it looks like that's happening. For all the reasons previously mentioned it's huge.
I agree the weight room is important but I've seen some relatively small weight rooms be very effective. It's all about economy of space and planning around it. Visit and clinic to get some ideas but the people on here could be a huge help. One thing that has helped us a lot is that we have a fieldhouse. It's all sports but just the space is huge for us.
From there the other suggestions I have don't take very much money.
First I remember hearing a college coach at a clinic say a coat of paint can work wonders. Beyond just painting spend a day, grill out, have the kids come around and work on the stadium. Low cost and team building. Do the same for your youth league and middle school fields to get them on board.
My biggest suggestion would be to recruit your own middle schools. This is the aspect of our program that I am in charge of and I really take great pride in it. I make a point to visit and talk to every middle school team (we have 3 feeder schools) and get their info (we use a google form). We have them over for a Fall MS Camp during Fall Break, this Friday for their last day of school (teacher in-service for us) they will come over to tour the school, we run a Winter and Spring Middle School camp, we go to the schools and do combines, I got a bunch of rubber bands made up that I hand out (they're super cheap) anything to promote your brand. It sounds ridiculous but you have to put a fence up around your district and make sure every athlete in 8th grade knows about the program and is excited about playing for you, not the other guys. I go out of my way to try to meet every 8th grader and learn their names since you never know who is going to turn into a beast. As a kid I heard Thad Matta say once you can't win the Kentucky Derby on a mule.
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Post by CoachWeitz on Dec 9, 2015 12:30:35 GMT -6
Not to hijack the thread but does anyone have any experience getting an indoor facility built? It's a program goal of ours (obviously long term) and would love to hear from someone who does have some experience.
If anyone has some experience with it please shoot me a PM.
Thanks
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Post by CoachWeitz on Oct 2, 2015 6:57:29 GMT -6
This year I run scout QB for our inside period but really I prefer not to. I feel like I'm getting reps that someone else should be using to develop and I can't coach the line, but our normal scout QB is throwing 1 on 1s during that period and through a weird circumstance there are no other QBs so I have to.
I put a helmet on when we were running midline and triple only because before I got there a coach was doing the same thing and caught a helmet to the face. Definitely felt like the biggest tool on Earth. If you need pads to simulate the look you're giving, you probably shouldn't be doing it, just my opinion.
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Post by CoachWeitz on Aug 14, 2015 6:11:45 GMT -6
I'm terrible with names so I make sure all of the kids know that first day which also makes the pay off bigger when I remember a kids name.
I started using word associations, sometimes they're 3-4 steps long but it makes me think through it and I remember. Hard to think of a good one off the top of my head but one player never knew where to go on any plays, his last name sounded like Garmin (the GPS thing) so I made that connection. Beyond that I'm a big rote memory guy so I will say everyone's name as many times as possible throughout the day.
Another thing we've done is take pictures of the incoming frosh when we do our Middle School Academy and put their name as the file name, that way you can go through and quiz yourself.
It also never hurts to have a kid you know pretty well to help you out, if they don't know the name they'll normally just go ask and tell me.
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Post by CoachWeitz on Aug 12, 2015 9:04:16 GMT -6
One of the best ones I heard was from a Coach when I was playing. "Simon, you look like a d!ck with no hole to go into." I lost it, certainly has a place and paints a picture but haven't brought myself to use it yet.
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Post by CoachWeitz on Jun 22, 2015 9:05:42 GMT -6
I keep wallet phone and keys in my locker, occasionally I have to beg for a key into the locker room but I can't stand running around with heavy pockets.
I tried looping my keys through the draw string on my shorts but had one unfortunate incident involving the backlash of the keys on a certain body part and I swore that one off. I used to bring my keys out and pin them (my key chain is a big safety pin) on the fence but kept forgetting them.
I wouldn't mind having my phone at practice for apps like Coach's Eye to give instant feedback on drills but haven't found a good solution yet, although the fanny pack might be a winner.
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Post by CoachWeitz on May 16, 2015 16:45:58 GMT -6
This is something I've taken over for our program and am a big believer in the importance of this. We mainly focused on Middle Schools but are in the process of branching out to our elementary. There's a couple of things we do, we are in a very different setting though, large city school, but I think there's a few good things we do.
The first thing we do, and we are incredibly lucky to be able to do this, is have the middle school teams over for a visit on the last day of the first semester. This gives us a chance to get their information and have them meet our administration and see our facilities.
The major component of what we do is what we call our Middle School Academy. Currently this is 2 days a week for 90 mins. We spend about 45 mins on change of direction and lifting technique (we use stations) and then 45 minutes with a position group, one day offense one day defense.
The middle school academy culminates with out Middle School Camp which is two weeks (last two weeks of the school year) of on field practice. These run like a team camp, one week offense, one week defense. These are amazing, best thing we do by far. We are able to get the varsity coaches out to help with the freshman coaches and we try to get as many youth/middle school coaches as we can to be there to see the drills.
We've added a few things this year that have huge potential. The first thing we did is have a combine at every middle school right after school in the gym. We have them run the 40, do a sled push that sort of thing. These have been great even though they sound ridiculous when you say you're having a Middle School Combine. We also added a Coaches Clinic into our Middle School Academy and once a week we discuss a different topic before the middle school academy and then they will help a position coach with their drills.
If you've got any questions feel free to PM me, I'm more than happy to help.
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Post by CoachWeitz on May 4, 2015 11:29:54 GMT -6
It doesn't help you with the Credit Card (although I wish I did have a solution to this) but it may help out more generally and could work for camp.
We have been using Google Forms this year a lot and it's been really good for us. We create a google form and have our kids fill it out with all their information. It populates to a spread sheet that you can use to create a database. We now have a database of our kids from current 8th grade all the way down into 3rd grade. If they have attended our workouts we have their info and can use it to send mailers/emails out.
You can email the link for the Google Form so it would work with the camp. Sorry I can't help with the credit card but hopefully google forms can be a bit of a help.
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Post by CoachWeitz on Apr 21, 2015 11:40:37 GMT -6
I understand some of the concern with a few of these test or at least hoping to achieve a personality/leadership with these test but I do think there is a place for testing in sports. I've been interested in possibly test players to get a rough picture of learning style, ability to retain information and problem solving ability, especially as players are entering the system.
I'm not saying any of this stuff would be earth shattering and change whole scale what I do with the team/position group but it might lead to better placement of players in positions (thinking big time about OL here) and ability to reach and teach players. Plus if you find a cheap one that takes less than a half hour to administer it's a pretty low cost idea which the potential for a big upside.
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Post by CoachWeitz on Apr 13, 2015 11:35:40 GMT -6
Guys,
I'm looking for some help here. I was talking with some of our youth coaches and they mentioned that a sled would help them out a lot for both blocking and tackling progressions. At our school we have several sleds but they are high school sized and on a different field than the youth league practices on. I looked online for sleds and they seemed a bit out of our price range. Does anyone have a solution to this? Am I missing a cheap supplier? Can we build one? I figure we can't be the first program to go through this.
Thanks for your help!
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Post by CoachWeitz on Apr 12, 2015 7:21:16 GMT -6
I agree with a previous post about the idea of toxic relationships. I've seen constructive relationships and toxic ones in high school, college and after college. The effect on the athlete, in my opinion, really comes down to the type of relationship. If it is a good relationship each partner should be stronger, if it is toxic one or both of the partners is being dragged down. In my mind this is a perfect conversation to have with the kids. I'm not saying it will work but it's something I feel we should do, maybe as a type of preemptive strike.
So many relationships now are not healthy for a variety of different reasons (mainstream media, social expectations, home life etc). While this problem is worse in High Schools, because high school kids are high school kids, it exists after school. I imagine we could all think back to a story where someone we know was in one of these relationships and it had a negative impact on their goals, character or social life.
My thought is that we need to teach what a good relationship looks like. We always talk about teaching kids leadership, study habits and work ethic to set them up for the future but understanding the dynamics of a strong relationship is just as important. When you consider that the person most of us will spend the most time with (although maybe not in season) is your partner, having a strong, healthy dynamic there has to be considered incredibly important. Especially at a time where so many of our kids are coming from single parent homes or homes with a dysfunctional relationship and there are not many examples in the media we have to be the ones modeling and talking about what a good relationship should look like.
Now to the OP as to what to do with a kid who has been snatched up into one of these relationships, showing concrete examples of how his performance has declined can help but it's really hard to see how toxic a relationship can be from inside the relationship.
I'll step down from my soap box now but that's just something that really effects our school.
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Post by CoachWeitz on Apr 9, 2015 10:27:52 GMT -6
Never been a football HC but our HC does a lot of moving from one group to the other talking to kids one on one and dealing with thing I don't know or want to know about. Personally I love it, his big theory is "I want to bring in the best coaches in the country and let those coaches coach, I'll deal with the rest of the stuff." As an assistant coach it's great, you can focus on coaching. That being said I think it totally depends on your situation and the trust you have with your assistants.
When I was a HC for rugby (obviously a bit different but similar in this case) I really enjoyed being able to get each of our assistants a drill that fit their specialty and let them kill it in that drill. I'd go around and pull one or two guys aside that were outside of the main stream (either higher or lower) and coach them up or set up the next drill or be their gopher and grab them anything they needed. Like everything I assume it depends on the circumstances.
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Post by CoachWeitz on Mar 11, 2015 9:11:39 GMT -6
Interesting perspectives here, personally I got with kakhi and team polo (team issued pullover and jacket when it's cold) as does the rest of our staff. When it super hot a few will wear kakhi shorts. When coaching freshman and JV I'll wear kakhi pants and team polo/pullover, ours is on Saturday Mornings so we're never going straight from the practice field.
My thought process with it is two parts, first I want to look professional (first impressions, the Russell Wilson quote with the "there's a king in every crowd" comes to mind) but mainly I don't want any attention. The game should be about the kids and them enjoying the moment and being successful. If I'm wearing anything else, in my mind, I'm drawing attention away from the players, if that's because I'm over dressed or under dressed doesn't really matter.
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Post by CoachWeitz on Feb 27, 2015 7:22:42 GMT -6
Great website, some incredible stuff on there but yes it was only a matter of time. My only question would be is there a way to circumvent (word of the day calendar) this and create a private playlist of the material that could be shared out? I figure if it wasn't public access there'd be a much better shot of it lasting. Anyone good enough with computers to know how to do that?
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Post by CoachWeitz on Feb 21, 2015 10:58:33 GMT -6
I’ve always been a big believer in relationships with players being an essential part of coaching and have always worked to get better in that aspect. With all the work I feel like we (or at least I) do on X and Os and technique I think this is one area where I don’t do enough research in. So with that being said what are some things you do to develop relationships with players? There are obviously the basics of being around and working with them through football and school and anything going on at home but what else have you done that you’ve found successful? Are there any resources you’ve found that have helped you?
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Post by CoachWeitz on Dec 10, 2014 7:56:41 GMT -6
Very simple and straight to the point, I put it up in my classroom and always refer to it
"Right is Never Wrong"
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Post by CoachWeitz on Oct 29, 2014 7:44:21 GMT -6
I think one of the tougher parts of coaching is finding a way to make the routine engaging. I'm with the previous posters in being stuck in the middle. I agree that you must continue to rep the essential drills and skills that develop your players but the magic is finding ways to make sure the players view them as engaging. One of the major things we notice in our area is that teams that make consistent playoff runs continue to stay on top for a variety or reasons, but one of the bigger ones we think is that they get an extra 2/3rds of a season of practices (6 weeks if you go to state here) which allows JV and Freshmen to gain that experience, especially when they are on the scout team.
I think developing depth in a drill is an important part of keeping these players growing. What I mean by that is at the beginning of the season you are working on the individual steps and breaking each of them down to make sure the foundation is solid, as the season progresses on you can start to move to deeper into your drill progression, focus on higher level skills and add competition.
Another approach I am looking to develop more this year is to come up with a full Rolodex of drills for different skills. For example this season we had something like 6-7 ball security drills that we would rotate (we do 2-3 ball security drills every day). One of the things I'm looking to develop this offseason is a much wider array of ball security drills that we can rotate through to keep them fresh and engaged, kind of a variety in monotony.
In the end no one way will do it and I think a lot comes down to the coach communicating the purpose, focusing on different coaching cues, bringing energy and finding a way to have fun with it.
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Post by CoachWeitz on Oct 13, 2014 10:18:53 GMT -6
I've found a few things that have helped, now we're at a big school so some of this stuff probably won't work at a small school but it's worked well for us.
I think the biggest thing without a doubt is to be positive and have fun with it and try to make it something they want to be a part of.
Without a doubt the biggest success I've found is by convincing the players they have an impact and what they are doing means something. I've always been of the belief that kids want to help the team and have a roll but don't always understand how what they're doing helps the team and think that they're just wasting their time. My best example of this is a game we killed the Varsity D with jet sweep, that Friday night they shut down the jet sweep, we made a point to bring that up to the scout team and all of a sudden they see the connection.
Your goal is to get the most out of players that are limited, when you look at it like that it can be a fun challenge. I like to go MacGyver on it and really find any piece that we can use to our advantage. For example we had a kid who could run an amazing jet sweep (same one from above) but couldn't catch the ball or block to save his life. He became our speed guy who everytime we had a jet or a jet fake he came in gave him something to take pride in. Other examples that people mentioned above would be the lineman or RBs who want to play TE. I just always make sure I'm communicating with them if some weeks we're using them and other weeks we aren't.
Also the only ones who are on the field behind the offense are the ones I'm using everyone else is on the sideline, makes it a little more elite to be out there, you really don't want to be a guy that isn't even in the mix for scout team.
Lastly the most important thing I ever learned running scout o was from our LB coach he told me I've never seen a scout O-lineman called for holding.
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Post by CoachWeitz on Aug 4, 2014 8:34:02 GMT -6
We're Adidas so I've got a pair of their golf shorts that are really nice but a cheaper alternative that's really comfortable for teaching are Slazenger (not sure on the spelling) but they're good and cheaper then the main brands.
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Post by CoachWeitz on Jan 30, 2014 16:40:23 GMT -6
Yep varsity and JV in there together as well as freshmen during the tournament, freshmen had different days during the season. We were able to use one of the cafeterias so we had them all face the same direction and they had to have an empty seat between each other. Seems like a lot but when you take away all the alternatives you basically bore them into doing the right thing. It also made it pretty obvious when they were talking. The most important part though is the kids who were failing a class being in a separate study hall with tutors and a better ratio. The staff support was critical to making it work.
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Post by CoachWeitz on Jan 30, 2014 11:05:15 GMT -6
While we don't really have this problem one of the things we have done at my current school that may be a good fit is to run study tables. We do them twice a week for about a half hour. The kids who are not failing a class are in a large room with a few coaches and work on their homework. When I'm there my rule is it can be anything that's learning (kind of like the Google 20% rule, it's pretty cool to see them find something they find interesting and start enjoying learning). Those kids who are failing a class go to a different study hall where it is more structured and there are teachers there to help them and a coach or two to make sure they're on task. This is made possible by the awesome support we get from the teachers here but it is very effective on helping the kids get their homework taken care of and in an idealized world getting kids to enjoy learning.
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