Re: small kid 

Shits tough when you don't mature like the other kids physically and mentally.  

Also sucks when you know it as the player and youre stacked against the deck and this grown man is yelling at you to be better and shits just not clicking. 

This is not a shot on you, I'm not in your shoes. But maybe this helps. 

Posted by: @bucksweep58

Re: small kid 

Shits tough when you don't mature like the other kids physically and mentally.  

Also sucks when you know it as the player and youre stacked against the deck and this grown man is yelling at you to be better and shits just not clicking. 

 

This is not a shot on you, I'm not in your shoes. But maybe this helps. 

Thanks Zach. I didn't take it as a shot on me, simply you telling me what you're seeing. I don't think you've ever steered me wrong. I watched every second of that video. I believe in everything he said and it fits 100% into my coaching style. I play head games with kids to be sure, but never say, "You can't do this". Instead, I'll say, "Hey, Mahonz said you can't do this. I told him he's crazy because I KNOW you can do it. How about we prove him wrong?" Sometimes, I'll use a teammate instead of a coach. In fact, did this last night with a kid. Worked like a charm.

This video doesn't fit in this particular case. First, if I understand your first line"Re: small kid" . . . No, this kid is as far from small as you can get. He's physcially and mentally mature. One of the smartest kids on the team and as Mahonz pointed out, one of the biggest in the league. He simply has extremely low standards for his own level of effort. He is completely satisfied with giving a 3 out of 10 effort while his teammates are consistently 8-10.  

2 years ago, Mahonz told me to pull the plug on the kid and I refused. I have run more remedial, confidence building, "build on success" progressions with this particular young man than any kid I've ever coached. We give him a small success, celebrate it, then give him a bigger challenge, then celebrate that, lather rinse repeat. 3 years in a row, he has been my special project. I even documented an entire season with him to see if I could get some Mojo out of the most stubborn cases. All of this to get him to a baseline of "adequate". I need to be crystal clear about this . . . I am not talking about "do better". I am talking about "give an effort". One of the mantras of our team is "Give the effort that your teammates deserve". It's clear this kid doesn't think his teammates deserve very much.

Last night, when I told Mahonz about my Tuesday conversation and how he was a no show on Wednesday, he asked, "Did you build him back up after you tore him down?" I said, "No, I did not. I am simply fed up with the kid and his effort." He started to advise me, "Okay, so you call him up tonight and say 'Hey Buddy, so I forgot to build you back up and blah blah'." I said that, "Yeah, I might consider that if this was the 100th similar conversation that I've had with the kid, but I'm in the 300-400's by now and I am done."

I'm willing to admit failure on my part. I don't like to blame kids because they are kids, but at some point, they bear some responsibility. He has taken none because he wants none. I think the forces I'm fighting against are beyond my skills and are definitely beyond my patience. The needs of the team will always take a back seat to his own comfort. When asked, he will admit this.

Well now that I know more about this kid.  Guess there's just a need to correct a lazy pre teen/teen.  That hasn't been answered yet ever soooo ... You did good lol

Posted by: @bucksweep58

Well now that I know more about this kid.  Guess there's just a need to correct a lazy pre teen/teen.  That hasn't been answered yet ever soooo ... You did good lol

Apparently not. He was back today. Told all his buddies he went fishing.

Posted by: @gumby_in_co

Posted by: @bucksweep58

Well now that I know more about this kid.  Guess there's just a need to correct a lazy pre teen/teen.  That hasn't been answered yet ever soooo ... You did good lol

Apparently not. He was back today. Told all his buddies he went fishing.

Sometimes fishing Is more fun than football, not gonna lie

Scrimmaged our "buddy team" last night. They "won", I suppose, which seems to be important to their ACs and absolutely no one else. I think they may have scored on 3 big plays while Mahonz was rotating and subbing and teaching. Not concerned one bit. Defense is looking very good.

Toss and Wedge was getting 4-7 yards per pop with the occasional 10. Fixed the issues from the last season and Mahonz described it as a "machine". What was really impressive was my 5th, 6th and 7th WBs getting between 4-6 yards. TKO wall got a turbo charge with X-man fit. We also did this without our 2 best guards who are literally top of the food chain and one of my tackles who arrived late due to back to school stuff. Mahonz said their defensive coaches were trying a lot of stuff to stop it. 

Wedge was good for about the same 4-7 yards per. My reverse with wedge blocking was a TFL, but I think I just need to keep running wedge until the perimeter players decide to  help out. I ran the reverse after 2 straight wedges.

BB Counters were a mess due to confusion. We'll clean that up. Didn't have a chance to run WB counters.

Standard reverses with sweep blocking were okay, but nothing to write home about. I did nothing to set them up and I'm sure there was confusion on the line.

Installed Flood and Toss passes in the 15 minutes before the scrimmage. Pass pro was a disaster, but Mahonz helped me clean it up after the scrimmage. We'll be fine. WB was in his own zip code on a deep route that we didn't get off. Completed the quick out to the FB for a long gain. FB isn't the fastest kid, so he got reeled in. Having a problem with the out route for the TE. FB is too geeked and runs too deep. TE is too slow/lazy and runs too shallow. We'll get it figured out. Ran a toss pass with the wheel tag to the QB. He was open, but WB's arm was hit as he threw. QB still out-jumped the coverage and caught it for maybe 7 yards.

We asked for 2 more plays at the very end so I could get a look at our sweeps. Man, oh man. It's been a long time since I've run Monster sweep. I think I may have made a believer out of Mahonz. The big question mark was if my back side guards could even get ahead of the WB. In practice, I took the biggest and slowest of them all and he crushed it. We scored on a sweep to the right and got about 6 yards going left and was a lucky tackle away from a TD. Bodies were flying everywhere.

This is more than I've ever tried to install in such a short time. Still haven't touched Beast or Empty. I'll probably install those in the Jamboree Saturday. We have a brand new team whose HC is nervous about playing us, we have our regualar scrimmage buddy and we have a 3rd team I know absolutely nothing about. It will be a long, hot day, so I am bringing my military surplus GP Medium tent. It's 16x32 feet and has walls you can roll up or down.

Posted by: @gumby_in_co

Scrimmaged our "buddy team" last night. They "won", I suppose, which seems to be important to their ACs and absolutely no one else. I think they may have scored on 3 big plays while Mahonz was rotating and subbing and teaching. Not concerned one bit. Defense is looking very good.

Funny. When you were on Offense you'd wait for them to help set their D even telling their Coach what play you were running at times. 

Me? They were snapping the football while I was literally standing in the B Gap quickly helping Eli with his 3 point tilt.

Its cool. Scrimmages can be funny things....but always very valuable. 

Posted by: @mahonz

Posted by: @gumby_in_co

Scrimmaged our "buddy team" last night. They "won", I suppose, which seems to be important to their ACs and absolutely no one else. I think they may have scored on 3 big plays while Mahonz was rotating and subbing and teaching. Not concerned one bit. Defense is looking very good.

Funny. When you were on Offense you'd wait for them to help set their D even telling their Coach what play you were running at times. 

Me? They were snapping the football while I was literally standing in the B Gap quickly helping Eli with his 3 point tilt.

Its cool. Scrimmages can be funny things....but always very valuable. 

Very funny. Last year, Mike's OC would take 3 minute huddles to draw up the scrimmage-winning plays. Or, there was the time I handed them a scout chart for the T-Wolves and first play, he decided to run a TE counter on me instead of anything the T-Wolves might run.

Oh, and BTW, the jamboree hosted by our club was cancelled about an hour ago. They didn't know the fields were closed for (what's the word for every other year) grass maintenance. Yay.

Troy offered us a scrimmage tonight and I appreciate the offer, but I just couldn't ask our parents to drive 45 minutes into the mountains on a weeknight on short notice. 

Where to start? Practice was awesome tonight. It was a defensive practice and Mahonz is working his magic. AC's are engaged. Kids are learning and playing like this is their team.

Schedule came out today and I'm a little bummed. We play 5 10-ply (extra soft) teams with 1 unknown new team in a row, then we play Troy and another very tough team. We will sleep walk our way to 5-3 or 6-2 with a goal of having a break through game to take our place among the giants. Then, playoffs. So I explained our situation to the team without sugar-coating it. I told them that we cannot rely on our opponents to make us better before the last 2 games, so we must push ourselves and demand more from each other so we can take the next step in our evolution. Upside is that we have a lot of wiggle room and opportunity to get really, really REALLY good at what we do before we take on Troy. 

Also, the league came out with a "Zero Tolerance" policy that all parents and coaches are supposed to sign. This is in response to the shooting in Dallas at a 9U football game involving Aqib Talib's brother. Maybe I'm unclear on the concept of "Zero Tolerance", but:

Penalties for Violation of the Zero Tolerance Policy
1. First offense - immediate ejection/removal from event. This is your one and only “warning.”
2. Second offense - immediate ejection/removal from event and suspension of attendance at 1 to 3 JYFA events depending on severity of violation
3. Third offense - immediate ejection/removal from event and suspension of 1 year of attendance at JYFA events.

Is it just me, or is this a whole bucket load of tolerance?

Posted by: @gumby_in_co

Where to start? Practice was awesome tonight. It was a defensive practice and Mahonz is working his magic. AC's are engaged. Kids are learning and playing like this is their team.

Schedule came out today and I'm a little bummed. We play 5 10-ply (extra soft) teams with 1 unknown new team in a row, then we play Troy and another very tough team. We will sleep walk our way to 5-3 or 6-2 with a goal of having a break through game to take our place among the giants. Then, playoffs. So I explained our situation to the team without sugar-coating it. I told them that we cannot rely on our opponents to make us better before the last 2 games, so we must push ourselves and demand more from each other so we can take the next step in our evolution. Upside is that we have a lot of wiggle room and opportunity to get really, really REALLY good at what we do before we take on Troy. 

Also, the league came out with a "Zero Tolerance" policy that all parents and coaches are supposed to sign. This is in response to the shooting in Dallas at a 9U football game involving Aqib Talib's brother. Maybe I'm unclear on the concept of "Zero Tolerance", but:

Penalties for Violation of the Zero Tolerance Policy
1. First offense - immediate ejection/removal from event. This is your one and only “warning.”
2. Second offense - immediate ejection/removal from event and suspension of attendance at 1 to 3 JYFA events depending on severity of violation
3. Third offense - immediate ejection/removal from event and suspension of 1 year of attendance at JYFA events.

Is it just me, or is this a whole bucket load of tolerance?

After you told me about the schedule I immediately expedited the 3 year plan for your Defense. So the positive is we can get more done this season than anticipated. I wasn't even planning on doing any Bump & Maul until next year. Now you will see a little bit from Dre and Layer on Friday....maybe Kirklan. I need to let Crystal know that Drake missing any Tuesdays is really bad.  

These zero tolerance polices are funny. Now that Public Drunk Lady is no longer part of the team....you are good. 👍 From what I experienced last season you do have a responsible sideline. *** For those not familiar with our League...we rarely play in HS level stadiums where the fans are in the stands. All sports parks with the fans 5 yards off the sidelines from goal line to goal line....so our Refs get extra abused and yes it is and has been a problem for the League for as long as I can remember. 

Really like the fact that we get to play 7 of 8 at our home field. Although this new format really blows for Troy's team, for example. He plays exactly zero games at EHS or CHS. That turf field at CHS is extra nice. 

Posted by: @gumby_in_co

I'm willing to admit failure on my part. I don't like to blame kids because they are kids, but at some point, they bear some responsibility.

In this medium (which is the most inexact of all), there's no shame in failure because of your drive, determination and dedication.  That's the real victory; that you pursued him.  Most won't, and that the sad part.  NO coach has the key for every player and you're right; the players do bear some responsibility.  But his parents bear the most responsibility.  And trying to fix something after years of neglect and/or abuse can still result in failure regardless of how noble our goals and how hard our pursuit.  If the child didn't learn anything from this...there's the pity.  But I'm betting you have learned tons, especially about yourself.  And that's a good thing.

--Dave

Posted by: @gumby_in_co

Penalties for Violation of the Zero Tolerance Policy
1. First offense - immediate ejection/removal from event. This is your one and only “warning.”
2. Second offense - immediate ejection/removal from event and suspension of attendance at 1 to 3 JYFA events depending on severity of violation
3. Third offense - immediate ejection/removal from event and suspension of 1 year of attendance at JYFA events.

Is it just me, or is this a whole bucket load of tolerance?

And they call it "Zero" tolerance? 🤣 

--Dave

Posted by: @coachdp

Posted by: @gumby_in_co

Penalties for Violation of the Zero Tolerance Policy
1. First offense - immediate ejection/removal from event. This is your one and only “warning.”
2. Second offense - immediate ejection/removal from event and suspension of attendance at 1 to 3 JYFA events depending on severity of violation
3. Third offense - immediate ejection/removal from event and suspension of 1 year of attendance at JYFA events.

Is it just me, or is this a whole bucket load of tolerance?

And they call it "Zero" tolerance? 🤣 

--Dave

4. Fourth offense - immediate inclusion in "double secret probation" program.

Posted by: @mahonz

After you told me about the schedule I immediately expedited the 3 year plan for your Defense. So the positive is we can get more done this season than anticipated. I wasn't even planning on doing any Bump & Maul until next year. Now you will see a little bit from Dre and Layer on Friday....maybe Kirklan. I need to let Crystal know that Drake missing any Tuesdays is really bad.  

Defense is in great hands. Pressure is off, so we can really COACH. Key will be keeping the pressure on ourselves. Can't help but think back to 4th grade where we had 2 soft teams to start and thinking we were really good going into week 3. I'll be reaching out to the Spillionaires and other TNYFL teams for some work.