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Post by coachtwy on May 31, 2012 12:48:11 GMT -6
My numbers this year will force us to field two teams in the same age group. (Not a bad problem to have.) My question is this:
What are your opinions and or experiences with either fielding one "select" team and a "non-select" team OR splitting the talent via a draft? A little background: Our program is a perrenial loser. My team had mild success last year (6-4)and I was considered the Savior! No other team in the organization has had a better record than 2-7 in the last 4 years!
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Post by Chris Clement on May 31, 2012 13:13:16 GMT -6
Doesn't sound like there's much talent to go around.
You have to weigh the benefit of a winning season against the other team getting clobbered all year. Is it a coaching issue? No talent? Lack of interest?
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Post by coachrobpsl on May 31, 2012 20:15:55 GMT -6
We keep established squads together but they have never been stacked. When parents on a losing squad notice the success of a winning squad they will make the accusation. It does not matter if it is factual or not. The losing team(parents) will start to resent everybody associated with the winning team. If you do stack a team you need to be prepared to take a bunch of heat about it. I am against stacking a team because of what it can do to the players on the other team. The problem that may surface now that you have more kids is that you may not have enough quality coaches to go around. So teams that are not stacked end up looking so because the other team is so poorly coached. A good youth coach can make a team with average talent successful. My problem with drafting is that unless you are having some sort of tryout then you have no idea of what you are getting. Many youth leagues(Pop Warner being the largest example)strictly forbid tryouts. I have seen poorly coached stacked teams lose badly and drafted teams win national championships. It all boils down to coaching.
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Post by bobgoodman on May 31, 2012 23:39:22 GMT -6
My numbers this year will force us to field two teams in the same age group. (Not a bad problem to have.) My question is this: What are your opinions and or experiences with either fielding one "select" team and a "non-select" team OR splitting the talent via a draft? A little background: Our program is a perrenial loser. My team had mild success last year (6-4)and I was considered the Savior! No other team in the organization has had a better record than 2-7 in the last 4 years! If I were in charge of your program, I would make you form your team from at least somewhat inferior talent, figuring your superior coaching would help make up for it, and giving more of the worse players a chance to benefit from your coaching for a season. I wouldn't leave your team completely high & dry of talent, but just give the other team enough better position in the draft to matter. Or are you saying your program is giving you 2 teams? In that case, I'd split the talent about evenly.
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Post by Chris Clement on Jun 1, 2012 6:04:43 GMT -6
You might be able to get away splitting older-younger, if the talent lies mostly along lines of age. You can sell the younger kids as developmental, giving them experience and solid playing time instead of being MPP's behind older kids.
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Post by coachtwy on Jun 2, 2012 2:50:03 GMT -6
There's talent. There's no Coaches. Our biggest problem last year even on my team was bad coaching. It's hard to find people that will buy in to one particular philosophy or coaching methodology. I had a lot of issues with coaches trying to teach things a different way.
The main issue is this: Some kids would get their feelings hurt by being on the "non-select" team. On the other hand, our "select" team would compete for a championship, create excitement and sign-ups, therefore increasing the overall success of the program. Like I said before, our program is not in good shape, and I think fielding a competitive team would help in my goal of changing our image from bottom dwellers to competitors.
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Post by coachrobpsl on Jun 2, 2012 7:10:49 GMT -6
A good youth coach is a rare commodity. Much rarer than talent. I can tell you from personal experience that a few winning seasons will not turn your program around. Good coaches will. Dave Cisar is in an organization where all of the squads run the same offense. The beauty of this is all the coaches can help each other out and the kids are not starting at the beginning every year. Everybody teaches and learns the same thing. By doing this you can build consistency within the coaching staffs. While I am not a huge fan off this(whole other topic) it certainly has its merits and I can definitely see how it can really help establish a program.
If you have guys on your staff going against what you want they have to go. Whatever you decide as a coach they have to be committed to it. If you are successful they will eventually buy in. I would keep your team together but don't deplete the other team so much that they are not competitive. But if they don't have coaching it won't matter. One of most talented teams we played last year was in our own organization. Sub par coaching. We won 39-0.
You need to hold coaching clinics for your staffs. So many youth coaches do not understand how different the youth game is from high school or higher. They need to be on the same page about fundamentals, practice organization(this cannot be under estimated), scouting etc. The process of building a program takes years(and can be torn down in a season). Train your coaches. This will improve your winning %. Higher winning % brings out more kids which hopefully brings out dads that are competent enough to learn to coach or can step right in.
Sorry if this is kinda off topic. It seems you see what they problem is in your organization. There is no quick fix. One really good team and one really bad team may end up backfiring on you. Good coaching does away with really bad teams. What offense do you run? The reason I ask is because I really do believe what Dave Cisar does within his organization can help you. If you are a system based offense(typically sw, dw , wt) this approach works very well. Even if all the squads don't run it, if you can get a few it will help over the long run.
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Post by coachtwy on Jun 11, 2012 11:06:10 GMT -6
I run the wing-t. I'm going to run some single wing too. I got the coach in the division below us to run wing-t as well because he is already familar with it. I agree with pretty much every comment on this post. I don't think a "select" team would go over well. I'd love a stacked team but I'd feel horrible for the kids not on my team. The unfortunate part is this: There is no coaching, so regardless of how much talent the other team has they will fail. I will be competitive with split talent but I'm not a good enough coach yet to say i could compete for a championship.
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Post by coachdoug on Jun 11, 2012 23:10:38 GMT -6
coachtwy - where in So Cal are you?
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Post by shotgun1 on Jun 13, 2012 19:01:08 GMT -6
Split the talent evenly and coach together as one team and split for games. This way you utilize all coaches during individuals and when you move to group your coaches go with their groups. WHen you split to team you do a short repetition period followed by going team O or team D against the other team and then switching. ALL COACHES COACH ALL THE KIDS.
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Post by coachd5085 on Jun 13, 2012 19:08:58 GMT -6
Split the talent evenly and coach together as one team and split for games. This way you utilize all coaches during individuals and when you move to group your coaches go with their groups. WHen you split to team you do a short repetition period followed by going team O or team D against the other team and then switching. ALL COACHES COACH ALL THE KIDS. I don't know about splitting games in a 10 game schedule..... I can foresee lots of problems with a 5 game schedule....
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Post by bobgoodman on Jun 13, 2012 21:54:04 GMT -6
Split the talent evenly and coach together as one team and split for games. This way you utilize all coaches during individuals and when you move to group your coaches go with their groups. WHen you split to team you do a short repetition period followed by going team O or team D against the other team and then switching. ALL COACHES COACH ALL THE KIDS. I don't know about splitting games in a 10 game schedule..... I can foresee lots of problems with a 5 game schedule.... I'm sure that's not what shotgun1 meant. Split for games, not split the games.
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Post by davecisar on Jun 14, 2012 9:10:47 GMT -6
Shotgun had best answer IMO Keep them together- run same system- same drills- coaching philosophy But split teams evenly via draft Stacking teams is unethical and will tear an Org apart IMO Leverage the good coaches you have across both teams- via combined practices- indys together, groups side by side, team- side by side Build your coaching staff- when your best O-line coach is coaching ALL the O-linemen during indys and side by side in group- ALL your O-line benefits from his coaching AND you are building new O-line coaches- those that are listening etc Best of luck
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dangerzone
Freshmen Member
[F4:jthompson383]
Posts: 35
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Post by dangerzone on Jul 6, 2012 11:33:51 GMT -6
When coaching in our program was a problem we coached all together(3 teams) 3-4th grade 5-6th grade and 7-8th grade team. The most knowlegable position coaches took the head roles and the other coaches learned from them. Then we had meetings after practice to identify any problems
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Post by coachtjs on Aug 23, 2015 22:26:58 GMT -6
My numbers this year will force us to field two teams in the same age group. (Not a bad problem to have.) My question is this: What are your opinions and or experiences with either fielding one "select" team and a "non-select" team OR splitting the talent via a draft? A little background: Our program is a perrenial loser. My team had mild success last year (6-4)and I was considered the Savior! No other team in the organization has had a better record than 2-7 in the last 4 years!
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Post by coachtjs on Aug 23, 2015 22:55:32 GMT -6
Putting all your top players on the Select team almost certainly means putting all your LEADERS on that team. Which will leave your B,C or D team with out any true leader types and every day examples of good football playing for the B,C or D team.(B,C or D based upon the talent level left for that team after you put all the best kids on the Select team) The best coaches always want to coach the best players. So there will be that dilemma as well. If these kids are eventually going to be playing on one team later in life you will be creating a rift between the two groups that may never go away. In the end not dividing the two teams evenly is also considered youth sports discrimination. You are not providing equal opportunity for all the kids involved. You are showing favor to one group just because they happen to be more developed at that point. If you believe that this will yield better players or better teams in the years to come you are deeply mistaken. I am unaware of any proof that Select teams yield better teams or players later in their lives. It is a myth perpetrated by parents who wants to give their child the competitive edge over other kids and coaches who have some thing to prove or just trying to keep their jobs. It is an Extremely selfish and self-centered way of running a youth football program. Some poor kid who wants to be a good football player who just has not played that much football at that point or has just not received his Genetic gifts from God at that point Is forced to go play with the other weaker players with hopes that he can develop equally as the other kids on the Select team. Even Development of all your players will give you the best possible Senior Class and the most wins the group could hope to achieve their last year of High School Which is FAR more important than one good team doing well early at the consequence of discriminating against other kids and losing many very good players that will quit long before they become Seniors. Be a MAN and sell your parents and players on the developmental benefits of evenly splitting the teams. You will have far more success in the future my sacrificing a few wins through the developmental stages. And remember it is a TEAM SPORT! It is not about the wins or the Select few. It is about the TEAM!
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Post by 33coach on Aug 24, 2015 9:54:15 GMT -6
My numbers this year will force us to field two teams in the same age group. (Not a bad problem to have.) My question is this: What are your opinions and or experiences with either fielding one "select" team and a "non-select" team OR splitting the talent via a draft? A little background: Our program is a perrenial loser. My team had mild success last year (6-4)and I was considered the Savior! No other team in the organization has had a better record than 2-7 in the last 4 years! i prefer drafting. give each coach a chance to do well and find the kids that will fit his system.
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