Not-so-pro football

[Lost In Xanadu]

First day of school was yesterday. What a bunch of focus-less spider monkeys I had to deal with. We did a lot of running. :)

 

same in your neck of the woods?

[Rick N. Backer]

Today is the first day of school for us. But last night I ran a drill where I had one ball carrier going against two defenders in a 10 yard by 10 yard space. I was behind the defenders, so they couldn't tell when the ball carrier was going to start running. Lots of untouched dances into the end zone. On a number of occasions I got to ask if guys thought they might have been in a position to make the stop if they were in their stances and paying attention.

 

The random selection thing though? Mostly working great. Thanks again.

[Lost In Xanadu]

Today is the first day of school for us. But last night I ran a drill where I had one ball carrier going against two defenders in a 10 yard by 10 yard space. I was behind the defenders, so they couldn't tell when the ball carrier was going to start running. Lots of untouched dances into the end zone. On a number of occasions I got to ask if guys thought they might have been in a position to make the stop if they were in their stances and paying attention.

 

The random selection thing though? Mostly working great. Thanks again.

Let me know how it goes tonight. First day of school is my least favorite practice of the year.... especially for the 6th graders because they are going from grade school to middle school and they get overwhelmed. They have very limited attention spans.

 

We have a rule that we can only practice for 6 hours a week once school starts, so our practice schedule went from 2.5+ hours 4x a week to 2 hours 3x a week.

[Rick N. Backer]

Today is the first day of school for us. But last night I ran a drill where I had one ball carrier going against two defenders in a 10 yard by 10 yard space. I was behind the defenders, so they couldn't tell when the ball carrier was going to start running. Lots of untouched dances into the end zone. On a number of occasions I got to ask if guys thought they might have been in a position to make the stop if they were in their stances and paying attention.

 

The random selection thing though? Mostly working great. Thanks again.

Let me know how it goes tonight. First day of school is my least favorite practice of the year.... especially for the 6th graders because they are going from grade school to middle school and they get overwhelmed. They have very limited attention spans.

 

We have a rule that we can only practice for 6 hours a week once school starts, so our practice schedule went from 2.5+ hours 4x a week to 2 hours 3x a week.

 

It wasn't pretty. One kid didn't like that I had him run the length of the field after asking him 4 or 5 times to keep his hands to himself and pay attention didn't work. I told the head coach he may hear about it from the kid's mother. To his credit, he agreed with me and said he'd love to hear from her.

[Lost In Xanadu]

Today is the first day of school for us. But last night I ran a drill where I had one ball carrier going against two defenders in a 10 yard by 10 yard space. I was behind the defenders, so they couldn't tell when the ball carrier was going to start running. Lots of untouched dances into the end zone. On a number of occasions I got to ask if guys thought they might have been in a position to make the stop if they were in their stances and paying attention.

 

The random selection thing though? Mostly working great. Thanks again.

Let me know how it goes tonight. First day of school is my least favorite practice of the year.... especially for the 6th graders because they are going from grade school to middle school and they get overwhelmed. They have very limited attention spans.

 

We have a rule that we can only practice for 6 hours a week once school starts, so our practice schedule went from 2.5+ hours 4x a week to 2 hours 3x a week.

 

It wasn't pretty. One kid didn't like that I had him run the length of the field after asking him 4 or 5 times to keep his hands to himself and pay attention didn't work. I told the head coach he may hear about it from the kid's mother. To his credit, he agreed with me and said he'd love to hear from her.

Yesterday was better than Tues, but they were still quite off. There was one kid that wouldn't stop talking, and it wasn't in a distracting way, just would hang around us coaches and ask a lot of questions, and in breaks between plays would talk about school to us. I finally said "Tell me, do you like gladiator movies?" and the coach that is about my age almost fell down laughing, the 23 yr old coach looked at us weird and the kid said "I really haven't seen too many" which made the 2 of us laugh even harder.

[Rick N. Backer]

Today is the first day of school for us. But last night I ran a drill where I had one ball carrier going against two defenders in a 10 yard by 10 yard space. I was behind the defenders, so they couldn't tell when the ball carrier was going to start running. Lots of untouched dances into the end zone. On a number of occasions I got to ask if guys thought they might have been in a position to make the stop if they were in their stances and paying attention.

 

The random selection thing though? Mostly working great. Thanks again.

Let me know how it goes tonight. First day of school is my least favorite practice of the year.... especially for the 6th graders because they are going from grade school to middle school and they get overwhelmed. They have very limited attention spans.

 

We have a rule that we can only practice for 6 hours a week once school starts, so our practice schedule went from 2.5+ hours 4x a week to 2 hours 3x a week.

 

It wasn't pretty. One kid didn't like that I had him run the length of the field after asking him 4 or 5 times to keep his hands to himself and pay attention didn't work. I told the head coach he may hear about it from the kid's mother. To his credit, he agreed with me and said he'd love to hear from her.

Yesterday was better than Tues, but they were still quite off. There was one kid that wouldn't stop talking, and it wasn't in a distracting way, just would hang around us coaches and ask a lot of questions, and in breaks between plays would talk about school to us. I finally said "Tell me, do you like gladiator movies?" and the coach that is about my age almost fell down laughing, the 23 yr old coach looked at us weird and the kid said "I really haven't seen too many" which made the 2 of us laugh even harder.

 

[Rick N. Backer]

We crushed them. I'm not going to raid my son's 529 plan on the expectation that Stanford is going to be calling me in 8 years just yet though. How'd you make out LIX?

[Lost In Xanadu]

We crushed them. I'm not going to raid my son's 529 plan on the expectation that Stanford is going to be calling me in 8 years just yet though. How'd you make out LIX?

We beat the hell outta them, but we also beat the hell outta ourselves. They got the ball first, gained a total of 3 yards, kicked... we drove down to the 8, fumble. They got the ball back, I think they gained 10 yards the entire drive, but penalty after penalty from us allowed them to score. There were 3 illegal tackles, 2 facemask and 1 off sides. HALF Pretty much the same story second half.

 

What drives me nuts is the fact I had a long talk with them before the game about being mentally tough. That's like 90% of the game at this age. Basic mistakes like not lining up in the correct position to big ones like turnovers and penalties absolutely killed us. If I was a parent watching the game, I would have thought the coaches didn't do anything in the last 2 months. They were so bad, it was embarrassing but we still were in the red zone 3 times, 0 scores, and we had at least 150 penalty yards against us.... the other team only had 10.

[Lost In Xanadu]

We are 0-2, (lost 12-14) but I felt very good after this game, not only by the way they played, but also because I got to put one of the new coaches in his place. He came over from a different league, coached 17 years there. I have had issues with him listening to me - I am 5-10 years younger than him, but know the way our league works.

 

He is the O coordinator, and I have been pushing him to put in the Wham formation and "pop pass". In our league, we get 1 point for running in an extra point and 2 points for kicking it (opposite NFL). I like the Wham and pop pass for getting these extra points, but he kept insisting that he has "a number of plays" that will easily convert the extra point. Well, we scored 2 TDs and didn't convert either try. After the game, I said "we are going to work on the pop pass and wham next week..... right?" and he just looked at me, and I said "now is the part where you say yeees" and he said "yes". I felt a little bad for smacking him down like that, but he needed to learn his place. I am still the head coach dammit. :)

 

If it wasn't for a hail mary bomb with 11 seconds left in the first half, the game would have been ours.

[Rick N. Backer]

We are 0-2, (lost 12-14) but I felt very good after this game, not only by the way they played, but also because I got to put one of the new coaches in his place. He came over from a different league, coached 17 years there. I have had issues with him listening to me - I am 5-10 years younger than him, but know the way our league works.

 

He is the O coordinator, and I have been pushing him to put in the Wham formation and "pop pass". In our league, we get 1 point for running in an extra point and 2 points for kicking it (opposite NFL). I like the Wham and pop pass for getting these extra points, but he kept insisting that he has "a number of plays" that will easily convert the extra point. Well, we scored 2 TDs and didn't convert either try. After the game, I said "we are going to work on the pop pass and wham next week..... right?" and he just looked at me, and I said "now is the part where you say yeees" and he said "yes". I felt a little bad for smacking him down like that, but he needed to learn his place. I am still the head coach dammit. :)

 

If it wasn't for a hail mary bomb with 11 seconds left in the first half, the game would have been ours.

 

We're 1-1. You were right about the "stay home" part. The other team scored not one but two touchdowns when, after the running back was sealed off at the sideline, he reversed ground and went all the way across the field before going down field for about 40 yards.

[robertus3]

oops

[Lost In Xanadu]

So - RNB, was you last week as bad as ours? I didn't see you in here talking about it, so I'm guessing it was bad? I needed a few days to get over the trainwreck. It was so bad, I stayed on the field for 15 minutes afterwards just so I didn't have to look at the parents :) Nothing we did, the kids absolutely shut down after going down 21-0 in the 1st quarter. No amout of encouragement could help... This team has a lot of skill, no heart or dedication. Edited September 26, 2013 by Lost In Xanadu

[Rick N. Backer]

So - RNB, was you last week as bad as ours? I didn't see you in here talking about it, so I'm guessing it was bad? I needed a few days to get over the trainwreck. It was so bad, I stayed on the field for 15 minutes afterwards just so I didn't have to look at the parents :) Nothing we did, the kids absolutely shut down after going down 21-0 in the 1st quarter. No amout of encouragement could help... This team has a lot of skill, no heart or dedication.

 

Actually, we won last week. But there was a lot of moaning about the other team cheating this way or that way. To his credit the head coach told them to knock it off and focus on the game. I pulled my son aside and told him I particularly didn't want to hear anything from his mouth about the other team, and to concentrate on what he was doing.

 

I could go on for hours about some of the parents and their complaints though. We have a few kids who clearly have no interest in being there, and who show it in practice and on the sidelines during games. Their parents are almost invariably the ones who b*tch about playing time.

[Lost In Xanadu]

So - RNB, was you last week as bad as ours? I didn't see you in here talking about it, so I'm guessing it was bad? I needed a few days to get over the trainwreck. It was so bad, I stayed on the field for 15 minutes afterwards just so I didn't have to look at the parents :) Nothing we did, the kids absolutely shut down after going down 21-0 in the 1st quarter. No amout of encouragement could help... This team has a lot of skill, no heart or dedication.

 

Actually, we won last week. But there was a lot of moaning about the other team cheating this way or that way. To his credit the head coach told them to knock it off and focus on the game. I pulled my son aside and told him I particularly didn't want to hear anything from his mouth about the other team, and to concentrate on what he was doing.

 

I could go on for hours about some of the parents and their complaints though. We have a few kids who clearly have no interest in being there, and who show it in practice and on the sidelines during games. Their parents are almost invariably the ones who b*tch about playing time.

Yup, we have a "mandatory meeting" tonight to address parental complaints. We had 2 and we addressed one before we actually got the complaint. I took control over rotating kids in, and we did a good job last week. The other one I asked that they come watch practice without their kid knowing they are there and watch the effort he puts out :)

 

What pissed me off about Sat was the fact the team we were playing didn't put in their backups until the 4th quarter. They won 41-6, but them still running their first string that late into the game was disgusting.

[Rick N. Backer]

So - RNB, was you last week as bad as ours? I didn't see you in here talking about it, so I'm guessing it was bad? I needed a few days to get over the trainwreck. It was so bad, I stayed on the field for 15 minutes afterwards just so I didn't have to look at the parents :) Nothing we did, the kids absolutely shut down after going down 21-0 in the 1st quarter. No amout of encouragement could help... This team has a lot of skill, no heart or dedication.

 

Actually, we won last week. But there was a lot of moaning about the other team cheating this way or that way. To his credit the head coach told them to knock it off and focus on the game. I pulled my son aside and told him I particularly didn't want to hear anything from his mouth about the other team, and to concentrate on what he was doing.

 

I could go on for hours about some of the parents and their complaints though. We have a few kids who clearly have no interest in being there, and who show it in practice and on the sidelines during games. Their parents are almost invariably the ones who b*tch about playing time.

Yup, we have a "mandatory meeting" tonight to address parental complaints. We had 2 and we addressed one before we actually got the complaint. I took control over rotating kids in, and we did a good job last week. The other one I asked that they come watch practice without their kid knowing they are there and watch the effort he puts out :)

 

What pissed me off about Sat was the fact the team we were playing didn't put in their backups until the 4th quarter. They won 41-6, but them still running their first string that late into the game was disgusting.

 

To be honest, I'm actually an advocate on our team for playing time for all the kids, even if the "product" on the field suffers, provided that the kids going in are trying their best in practice, and on the sidelines during games they're paying attention, cheering on the team, and ready to go in. If your kid can't be bothered to try in practice, or pay attention during the game, don't blame me if he doesn't get on the field as much as other kids who do do those things. And I don't see myself as a babysitter, or as someone whose job it is to get your kid interested in playing. If your kid doesn't want to be there, don't make him go. And there's only so far I can go disciplining your kid. If I saw my son doing some of the things other kids do, the coach wouldn't be fast enough to get a chance to punish him.

[Lost In Xanadu]

So - RNB, was you last week as bad as ours? I didn't see you in here talking about it, so I'm guessing it was bad? I needed a few days to get over the trainwreck. It was so bad, I stayed on the field for 15 minutes afterwards just so I didn't have to look at the parents :) Nothing we did, the kids absolutely shut down after going down 21-0 in the 1st quarter. No amout of encouragement could help... This team has a lot of skill, no heart or dedication.

 

Actually, we won last week. But there was a lot of moaning about the other team cheating this way or that way. To his credit the head coach told them to knock it off and focus on the game. I pulled my son aside and told him I particularly didn't want to hear anything from his mouth about the other team, and to concentrate on what he was doing.

 

I could go on for hours about some of the parents and their complaints though. We have a few kids who clearly have no interest in being there, and who show it in practice and on the sidelines during games. Their parents are almost invariably the ones who b*tch about playing time.

Yup, we have a "mandatory meeting" tonight to address parental complaints. We had 2 and we addressed one before we actually got the complaint. I took control over rotating kids in, and we did a good job last week. The other one I asked that they come watch practice without their kid knowing they are there and watch the effort he puts out :)

 

What pissed me off about Sat was the fact the team we were playing didn't put in their backups until the 4th quarter. They won 41-6, but them still running their first string that late into the game was disgusting.

 

To be honest, I'm actually an advocate on our team for playing time for all the kids, even if the "product" on the field suffers, provided that the kids going in are trying their best in practice, and on the sidelines during games they're paying attention, cheering on the team, and ready to go in. If your kid can't be bothered to try in practice, or pay attention during the game, don't blame me if he doesn't get on the field as much as other kids who do do those things. And I don't see myself as a babysitter, or as someone whose job it is to get your kid interested in playing. If your kid doesn't want to be there, don't make him go. And there's only so far I can go disciplining your kid. If I saw my son doing some of the things other kids do, the coach wouldn't be fast enough to get a chance to punish him.

Yeah, we tell all the kids playing time is earned in practice. You miss practice, playing time suffers. You don't try hard, playing time suffers. I let the O and D coordinators rotate kids in the first 2 weeks. After the first week I was told "sorry, time got away from me, I will do better next week." After it happened again the second week, I said "Since you guys are too focused on the game, I will take care of rotating and let you know when they are going in so you can adjust accordingly." :)

 

Our 8th grade team plays for a championship. Usually by 8th grade, you have the majority of kids there invested in football; who are not just there to make mom or dad happy. They play to win, and that is completely understandable.

 

I coach 6th grade, and I am more interested in teaching them football, them having fun, coming back next year than I am winning. We always play to win, but winning with 11 guys is not fair to the other 20 on the team and will cause at least half of those 20 not to come back next year.

[Lost In Xanadu]

Frustration setting in. I finally let the new OC have it on Sat. Not only is he a douchebag, but he has no idea how to call a game.

 

His way of coaching is "scream scream scream" and the kids just stopped responding to it. When they go out on Defense, they fight. They like that coordinator. When they go out on Offense, they don't care because they know they are going to get yelled at either way. After the game he made a comment to me like "I don't think the yelling is getting thru to them" and I said "You want the truth? It's all your yelling that got us in this situation." He got pissed and stormed off....

 

This year has been no fun for me

[Rick N. Backer]

Frustration setting in. I finally let the new OC have it on Sat. Not only is he a douchebag, but he has no idea how to call a game.

 

His way of coaching is "scream scream scream" and the kids just stopped responding to it. When they go out on Defense, they fight. They like that coordinator. When they go out on Offense, they don't care because they know they are going to get yelled at either way. After the game he made a comment to me like "I don't think the yelling is getting thru to them" and I said "You want the truth? It's all your yelling that got us in this situation." He got pissed and stormed off....

 

This year has been no fun for me

 

Sorry to hear that LiX. It sounds like you put a lot of heart and soul into your team, and it stinks that you're not enjoying it.

 

We had a forfeit Saturday, so we ended up having a scrimmage game. Me and another coach went up against the head coach and his buddy, who is basically the first assistant. My partner handled the offense and I handled the defense.

 

We beat them. The HC was not happy about giving up 2 pick 6s. :)

[Lost In Xanadu]

Well, good news. I talked to the coaching coordinator that brought this new guy over and we cleared the air. I was worried about bad blood between them, so I treaded lightly. After I got the ok from the coordinator to run the team as I see fit, I brought the hammer down on Tues, went back to traditional stuff and the kids were really pumped up. We had one of our best weeks of practice, and we are going to play a team that is also 0-4. Man, I hope we win this one. We need it. I need it.

[Rick N. Backer]

Well, good news. I talked to the coaching coordinator that brought this new guy over and we cleared the air. I was worried about bad blood between them, so I treaded lightly. After I got the ok from the coordinator to run the team as I see fit, I brought the hammer down on Tues, went back to traditional stuff and the kids were really pumped up. We had one of our best weeks of practice, and we are going to play a team that is also 0-4. Man, I hope we win this one. We need it. I need it.

 

Good luck LiX.

[Lost In Xanadu]

First win of the season, 26-0!!

 

I just wish now that I would have had that talk with the coaching coordinator weeks ago :)

[Rick N. Backer]

We tied. It was a best case scenario because the team we played had many kids from my son's school that are his friends (the team district lines don't follow the school district lines for some reason). The other team had 1 kid their quarterback threw to every time I can remember. He burnt us a couple of times. When it became clear that they weren't going to spread the ball around, I put my best cover kid on him, and told the safety to pick him up if he passed the linebackers. They didn't listen every time unfortunately.

[Lost In Xanadu]

Prediction time.... the kids are feeling invincible after their big first win. They have been taking practice lightly, and I have had to repeatedly tell them to pay attention this week.

 

We are playing a pass happy team that has been playing together since 3rd grade. I have a feeling they are going to get a big wake-up call this weekend.

[Lost In Xanadu]

Prediction time.... the kids are feeling invincible after their big first win. They have been taking practice lightly, and I have had to repeatedly tell them to pay attention this week.

 

We are playing a pass happy team that has been playing together since 3rd grade. I have a feeling they are going to get a big wake-up call this weekend.

Call me Nostradamus.

[Rick N. Backer]

Prediction time.... the kids are feeling invincible after their big first win. They have been taking practice lightly, and I have had to repeatedly tell them to pay attention this week.

 

We are playing a pass happy team that has been playing together since 3rd grade. I have a feeling they are going to get a big wake-up call this weekend.

Call me Nostradamus.

 

 

We won Saturday. I'm so glad this is the last week of the season. The head coach gave me a little attitude on Saturday because my son and I showed up about 10 minutes before game time. I explained to him last week that my son's hockey games (the hockey regular season started Saturday) end a half hour before football starts, so we're changing from hockey gear to football gear in the locker room, and like him, the hockey coach wants the kids' attention after games to talk about what he thought about the game they just played. He's a good guy, but he just doesn't get that these kids aren't on scholarship or pros. Some of the other parents have asked my wife if I'm going to coach again next year. My wife, ever the more diplomatic one, says "I don't know what he'll do next season." She's lying. No chance.