What High School Coaches Want
What do High School coaches want from youth football coaches? A better question to ask would be, what do very successfull High School head coaches want freshman football players to know when they show up at the first day of football practice?
What One State Champion Coach Says
I’ve kind of answered that question a time or two in this blog, but let’s get it straight from the horses mouth. Last week I went in and visited with Mark King, head football coach of Lincoln Southwest High School in Lincoln, Nebraska. This is a school with about 2,000 students and competes in the largest class (Class A) in the state of Nebraska. Marks teams have been the dominant team in the area for the last 5 years, Mark has been head coach at Southwest for 6 years. His team won a Class A State Title in 2006. Mark has 6 former players playing on the Nebraska Cornhuskers this season. It’s safe to say Mark has a track record of success in coaching teams and developing players.
Successful coaches have information I want, information that can help me be a better coach, and in turn make the football experience a better one for the kids under my care. We all want the kids we coach to go on and play High School football. As a coach I want to know what do High School coaches want to see in that player when he shows up? I “interviewed” two of the best High School coaches in the state to ask them what they thought.
Mark was very kind in giving me just over an hour to talk about this very subject as well as help me with a few X’s and O’s issues we are mulling over in the off-season. Mark and I had played against each other in High School, then played on the same team for a year in college. Mark, like many High School coaches has love-hate thoughts when it comes to youth football coaches. On one hand he does get kids into his program with playing experience, on the other hand he sees a lot of big good looking athletes walking the halls that never go out for football. Invariably when a coach asks these kids why they aren’t playing football, they answer “I tried it when I was a kid and didn’t like it”. How does this happen? According to a Michigan State study over 70% of kids that play youth football today will never play High School football. The top reasons why kids quit playing? Poor Coaching, Lack of Playing Time and Playing on Non-Competitive Teams. Sounds like any teams in your youth football league or worse yet, in your organization?
What Some Misguided (But Well Meaning) Youth Football Coaches Do
Unfortunately many youth football coaches mistakenly think that they are best preparing their kids for High School football by running the systems the High School runs. If the High School runs a Spread Air Raid and 3-5-3 defense, these coaches think , yeah I’ll line them up just like the High School and then the kids will be well prepared for the first day of practice, I’ll be the hero. Never mind that very few High Schools are running the same offense or defense that they ran 5 years ago, in fact many High Schools have an entirely different coaching staff in place than when little Johnny started playing youth football at age 8. Never mind the offense or defense doesn’t fit what an 8 year old body and mind can physically or mentally do with 3 days a week practice.
When asked how important it was that the kids entering the 9th grade knew Mark’s offense or defense, Mark replied, “Not an Iota”. Mark said he just wants “Football players, kids that love to play football and can accelerate through contact” he also said “If they are coachable and work hard, that is a big plus”. Notice there wasn’t a single thing in there about being able to run some of the Wing T type concepts Mark likes in his offense or knowing how to play Cover 3 on defense. Mark feels he and his staff are pretty competent guys who can teach what the kids need to know to compete on Friday nights.
Building a Love for the Game
What Mark and most very successful High School coaches want is for us to do no harm, to not run kids off, They want us to help develop what we call: a love and appreciation of the game in the kids. To do that, you have to teach the kids schemes and techniques where the player can show progress and be able to have both team and some individual success. If little first year average player Johnny is playing tight end and is asked to reach block a 9 technique defensive end, most likely he isn’t going to have much success and neither is the play. The end result is little Johnny thinks he isn’t much of a football player, never mind that his team is losing nearly every game and they aren’t scoring many points. Add in a practice schedule that wastes 30 minutes on set aside conditioning and an hour a day on live scrimmaging and you have a recipe for little Johnny not playing past age 8.
Despite what many will tell you, you can and should have fun in football practice. You can have fun, teach great fundamentals, play everyone and field competitive football teams, these are NOT mutually exclusive terms. You can have it all, and when you do, you will have kids that end up having a blast playing football, learn the life lessons the game teaches us all and kids that go on to play High School football. Unfortunately, if you choose to run a scheme or use techniques that average youth players can’t execute well or insist on using an archaic practice methodology, your kids are going to be part of that 70% dropout number. Your kids will end up being one of those good looking kids these High School coaches see walking the halls that got “ruined” by his youth football coach.
