Team Building...



"Together"

Team building is an often used, yet little understood axiom in the world of football these days.  I want to take the time to look closer in to this all to often overlooked topic.  I think coaches should invest as much time as they can in to building their teams, even if you feel your team is a tight knit unit, you can never really do too much team building.

Team building has many key elements, the most important elements, in my opinion are earning trust, communication, and teamwork.  These elements can be built in many different ways, however I feel the order they are listed in above, is how you should approach team building.  A great book, that helped me when I was a young coach was 101 Teambuilding Activities.  This book is a must have for any coach that is about to implement an off-season team building experience in their football program.  Let's look closer at these items.

Trust
I joked in my last article about trust falls, but I've actually done this, and it works quite well.  Simply put trust falls involve either pairs or groups of players that are set up where an individual allows himself to fall and be caught by his teammates or teammate.  Seems simple, but it's a very good bonding experience and is simple and easy to do.  A twist I added, was that when I had the players pair up, every time a player caught another player he had to make the statement "I got you".  This reinforced the element of trust between the 2 players.


Trust fall!


Another excellent trust builder is an exercise I called "What you mean to us".  Every player was given sheets of paper, and at the top of the paper was a player's name on the team.  This was usually done with the varsity only, and should be done in small groups as it does take some time.  The players then write a positive element that their teammate brings to the team.  The papers are then compiled by name and distributed to their owners to read.  The idea here is that people are more likely to write things than say them, and it shows the important elements that individuals bring to the table as a teammate.  I have left it at this stage, or even opened the floor for discussion.  There is no right or wrong way here, the key is to keep things positive.




Be positive, stay positive...Banana Hands!

Another exercise is 1 you can do anytime, but is a very good graphic exercise.  Take a box of toothpicks and wrap with a rubber band.  Call up a player and have him try to break this banded group of toothpicks.  As we all know, this will not happen.  Now, call another player up, remove 1 of the toothpicks and have him break it.  What this illustrates is that together we can't be broken, and are strong, however by ourselves, we are weak, and easily broken.  Another way to do this, if you don't have toothpicks is simply to have a player stand up, make a fist and have another player come up and try to dig out 1 of his fingers and bend it (obviously not to the point of breaking it or anything).  This will be nearly impossible to accomplish.  After a few attempts, have the player who initially made the fist hold his fingers out and retry the exercises.  Obviously this will end quickly as the fingers will bend easily.  Again, this shows the team, separate we are vulnerable, yet together we are strong.




Can't be broken...


Communication
As coaches all know, without communication, you cannot possibly achieve success.  Communication is 1 of the most underrated skills that humans have.  How many times have you seen a wide receiver on television get behind a defensive back for a touchdown, only to have the defensive back throw his hands up and argue with another teammate about what the coverage was?  Clearly there was a lack of communication there.  Here are some things I've used to facilitate and show the importance of communication.




Good communication is essential!


The old "telephone game" is a very easy way to show the effects of communication in a group setting.  What I did was put the team in a room, then take one of the captains, and whisper in his ear a statement.  This player was then to transfer this message to the next teammate.  The message would get passed around the room until the final player was asked what the message was.  99% of the time, the answer you would get was not the original 1 you started with.  This exercise shows the importance of listening, and how listening relates to communication.  Another good idea is to also do this between the coaches.  I did this when I was a head coach in front of the team.  This showed the players the coaches were only human, and that we too had to work on listening to facilitate communication.




Learn to listen before you speak.


Another game I used to have the players play, was what I simply called the noise game.  We would create an obstacle course, usually in the gym, but you can do it anywhere.  Players were paired up with a teammate and one was blindfolded.  The partners could not touch, and the commander (unblindfolded) player could not whisper instructions.  The remaining members of the team would surround the obstacle course and would begin shouting when I blew the whistle to start.  The objective was for the pair to navigate through the obstacle course from beginning to end with the best time.  The commander could only give directional commands to the blindfolded player.  If an obstacle was struck it was a 10 second penalty.  What the underlying goal of this drill was is it taught players to focus on the communication by having to listen through the "noise" of the commander.  It also had a competitive element to it as well, which made even more fun.


Teamwork
There are a myriad of teamwork drills out there, and I've used several.  The general goal of these drills is to see the group develop a leader, and then follow instructions, work through problems, use multiple ideas and work through problems for a common solution.  There's one in particular where each team is equipped with a bucket of water, and a bungee cord. The goal is to navigate an obstacle course from one end to the other and dump the bucket of water in a larger bucket without spilling the contents.  This drill involves creating a device, with only the supplies provided, that the group comes up with.  You will easily see who the alpha males are and who are the followers.  Too many alphas can lead to indecision and arguing.  Not enough, or none at all, lead to indecision through lack of communication and effort.  As a coach it's a great tool to see who sticks out as a leader.  To the team, though, this is a chance for guys to step up, that may have otherwise been quiet or withdrawn.  It also puts some of the players out of their comfort zone by forcing them to work with the others.  All of these items are important to facilitating the development of teamwork. 

Alpha Male

Again, I'm not going to list all the drills, as there are so many it would be pointless.  The general idea with teamwork drills are what is paramount.  Find a drill you can do, and then execute it.  Always remember to evaluate the end result of every drill.  This way, you have some ideas who may give you problems in the future, who you can lean on, and who you don't need to put too much pressure on.  As you can clearly see, teamwork drills do more than just facilitate teamwork, they give you, the coach, a clear window into the leadership and cohesiveness of you overall team's framework.  This is why it is so important to record the results, either written, or actually recorded (yes I've videoed these exercises).

Now, I'm going to step on my soap box here some, and if you don't care for religious views, click the little "x" at the upper right corner of the screen!  The Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) is a great resource when it comes to team building.  FCA also does good with the building of individuals, and is the best resource I have found in all my years of coaching.  Their camps are second to none when it comes to team building, and team building exercises.  I went with the team last summer to a team camp, and what an experience!  I felt our team came out of that camp much closer and more bonded than when it went in.  I also felt, certain individuals really benefited from going to the camp, and got a lot out of the spiritual portion of the camp.  You can go to these big college camps, or NFL camps, and get good at running the zone read, or defending the Air Raid offense, but those camps ability to help build your young men pales when compared to the FCA.  Like I said, I'm "soapboxing" it here, so I apologize, but there's something to be said for a camp that you can work the game of football, and also receive a great spiritual message at the same time.  Ok, I'm going to climb down off this soap box, and talk about some very good team building exercises I've done in the past.

I want to show how I rolled all the above into my preseason team camp.  This camp was the highlight of many kids years, and marked the beginning of the fall, and football season.  This camp was very important to our team for many reasons.  Please read further and I will explain more about our preseason camp.

Team Camp
At first look at the heading, most would think..."Duece, you've already mentioned this?!", however I'm not talking about a team camp you go to, I'm talking about team camps you host for your team only.  I mentioned in a previous post (found here) about a team camp lock-in I did for several years when I was a head coach.  I can truly say it was one of the best experiences I've been able to be a part of as a football coach.  The basic layout of the camp was that the team would report in the middle of the week, usually on a Wednesday night.  The team would come to the high school and check in to our gymnasium.  Now, you have to remember, these guys were going to live here for the next 3 days, so they had to have bedding, clothes, towels etc.  We made them live together with their position group, they could not group up based on who their friends were.  We did this based on defensive positions usually and spread the guys out through the gym.  I usually tried to get 2 coaches per position group (yes, the staff was expected to be there as well) so that there would be plenty of supervision.  I had an orientation to let the players know of the rules of the camp, and we handed out our summer awards that evening after everyone had been officially checked in.  Then we got ready to practice!  At the stroke of midnight, we were on the game field with the lights on and practicing!  We called it "Midnight Madness"!  The basic layout of the day was 3 practices per day with 2 being 2 hours in length and one being an hour-and-a-half.  In between this time was meals, free time, or speakers.  I tried to get anyone I could to come talk to these young men, with most being local business men, or pastors of local churches etc.  The best 1 I got was a young man who was born a paraplegic, yet managed to be the assistant manager at our local McDonald's.  He talked to our guys about adversity, and how to handle adversity in the face of crisis.  In the evening, after our last practice we would gather the team, and our resident FCA member (my JV offensive line coach) would work on team building.  He had a message, and delivered, very carefully, through use of scripture.  Obviously in today's world of separation of Church and State, you have to be careful, but we walked that line closely and quite well over the past 3 seasons.  On the last night of the camp, we had Senior Night, where each senior would get up and talk about their time as a football player in the program, what they wanted to accomplish, and what they remembered most about their time in the program.  This was a very important bonding experience between the older players, and the young incoming freshmen players.

The overall goal of the team camp was team building.  In order to get the camaraderie that you are looking for, you need to take the players out of their comfort zone somewhat.  I did this by having them room with guys they were not used to hanging out with.  We also had them eat by position, instead of class, so they were not all mixed in with guys their same age.  I had several portions of the camp that involved players getting up and speaking, which involved communication, and getting the player out of his comfort zone.  I also did exercises that were mentioned above in both a teambuilding setting, and a football setting.  Don't get me wrong, we did football, but for the coaches, it was a chance for us to take the temperature of our team, see how they got along, and where potential pitfalls could be. 

I know the team camp seems like a lot to organize and you would be right to assume that.  However, it is like anything else that requires hard work, it's worth it!  You will find that players will look forward to this portion of the season with earnest, and participation is easy to come by.  In our area, the rules said we had to have this open to the public, which was no problem, since we were rural we didn't share the camp with other teams.  If you're in an urban setting you might have to get creative, but then hey, that's why we make the big bucks right?!  Our rules also said participants had to pay admission, our camp was usually one dollar!  We then turned around and used that money on a pizza or movie night during the camp.  The basics here is that it's worth it to help develop your team.  If you have any more questions on the team camp, email me, I can probably dig up an old brochure or schedule somewhere I can share with you.  At the very least we can chew the fat about how to set one of these things up.

Well, news on the job front, I may be working after all!  I have a friend who may be getting a local junior high head coaching gig, and wants me to head up the defense.  I feel it's definitely a step backwards, however it's coaching, it's local, and it's not as pressure packed as the higher levels, which is what I need right now.  We'll see, nothing is set in stone, but I have to get my head wrapped back around being a DC and what defense I want to use.  The league is spread oriented, but spread to run, not spread to pass.  I'm thinking either the 46 Nickel for it's simplicity or the 4-2-5, with 1 high principles utilizing Rip/Liz/Mable principles.  Anyhow, that's what I'll be working on in the next few weeks.  I do have a good post on offense (I know, been a while) that I want to share.  Should be ready some time next week so check back in and see what you think of it.

Have a happy and safe Fourth of July!!!




I pledge allegiance to...


Duece

Off-Season...Summer Workouts



Climb that mountain...


Well, like I promised, I'm going to move on and discuss the actual workouts themselves in this post.  I'd also like to hit on some other things I've done in terms of mini-camp applications, and overall ideas I've had about increasing participation in off-season workouts using competitions. One side note I'd like to add, for those thinking the summer workout is going to immensely increase your team's strength and size, I'm afraid you are greatly misgiven.  In my years as a coach, the longest I've seen a summer program go is 10 weeks.  This is just not enough time to develop a player, especially if it will be the first time they've picked a weight up all year.  Football is year-round now, and so much training.  The teams I have been a part of trained all year, both in season, and out of season.  The summer is just one part of this year-round training.
 So without further adieu....

The Workouts
Now I'm not going to sit here and tell you, that BFS, is the best, or anything like that.  What I'm talking about in this section is the overall mood, tempo and atmosphere your workouts need to have.  Utilize whatever format you want, there's so many out there no, they all must have some merit!  I've done 4 day weeks (2 day upper body, 2 day lower body) as well as 3 day workouts with 1 day of practice, you name it, I've tried it.  I'm going to break down things that should go in to your workout to help make your players want to be there.  Every player knows working out is beneficial for them, however, as stated in an earlier post (found here), the teenager these days have tremendous time constraints put on them by all the activities they have to do around them.  You are in a losing battle if you simply ask them to choose the weight room over their girlfriend, or making the almighty dollar!  This is where you've got to get creative and innovative to keep the weight room and the off-season program lively and intense.  So let's look at what a good workout should have in it to be effective at keeping today's football player attentive.

• Meaningful exercises- This is important because kids nowadays have access to information available at their fingertips.  Don't believe me, tell them something that's hogwash, and see if the next day they don't "sniff" you out.  Young folks today seem to trust adults less and less, so even though they listen to what you say, they are going to try and see if you are for real, or just plain bullshit.  What you put in your workouts, must correlate to getting better on the playing field, not just taking up time.  Your players are already stressed for time, they don't want to sit through a workout that isn't designed to get them better.  Give them what they need and they will want to be there because they can see how the workout is helping them get better on the field.
• Matched partners- This is very important.  You don't want your 5'5" 130 pound Junior Varsity (JV) running back lifting with your 6'3" 250 pound senior offensive tackle (OT)!  Try to partner your players based on ability.  This will give them someone to compare themselves and their achievements to.  Some kids are easily intimidated, so lifting with a partner that is physically superior will become frustrating and can result in the loss of this frustrated player.  Also, your stronger players don't benefit from working out with weaker partners, they need to be pushed too.  Match these players up, irregardless of position, and let them push each other.  Remember, competition is a healthy thing!
• Variation- Workouts that tend to repeat themselves over time, begin to lose the interest of the young mind.  Throw a curve ball in every now and then and have lifting competitions, or running competitions etc.  The sky's the limit when varying up your workouts.  The idea is to keep things in your off-season program from getting stagnant and dull.  I have done any thing from have sprinting, passing, punting, kicking (the latter two being hilarious) competitions, to playing a version of "Bowden Ball" known as 4 on 4.  Things were dull one day last summer in the weight room, and my offensive line (OL) coach decided to do a push up competition.  What the heck, the kids were working upper body right?!  One day out of the schedule doesn't hurt anything, and it keeps the players' interests peaked.  Use your imagination and do this once a week, or do something different everyday at the end of the workout.  Whatever you do, don't let your workouts become dull and repetitive!
• Dynamic- Your workout needs to adapt to the varying levels of player you may have in your weight room/gym/practice field at any one time.  I always tried to mix up times for when JV and varsity lifted, but inevitably you had some kids mixing in.  Try to keep these skill levels separate and different if possible.  The younger player needs more teaching and technique, whereas the older player already has this, and needs less teaching and more individual workout time.  This goes back to having a good staff (found in my first post here) that can allow different coaches to be spread throughout the workout area helping and aiding these different skill sets.  The scheduling of workouts also needs to be dynamic.  Obviously if you can do it, schedule the JV and varsity separate.  I always had JV come in at 3 P.M. and workout until 5, with the varsity guys coming in at 5:30.  This gave the older players time to get off work since most of them had summer jobs.  Sometimes you can't do this.  I have a friend that has the weight room open three times a day.  He opens it a 6 A.M. for the guys going to work who want to work out early, he reopens at 1 P.M., and then has a late session beginning at 5 P.M.  This flexibility allows your players to get to their workouts regardless of what their schedule is.
• Tempo- Workouts should move and flow about in either the weight room, out on the track, or in the gym.  One of the worst things a coach can do is have dead time.  Dead time has the mind wandering and thinking of other places the player could be.  This in turn, leads to doubting why they are there in the first place.  If you keep em' moving, and working, they won't be drifting off to "la-la land" thinking about that new movie, or the new video game that just game out.  Just like in football practice, tempo is completely up to the coach.  I have done "prison style" workouts where coaches have counted every repetition, and I've also allowed the players the freedom to move about on their own.  What I've usually done is explain that the players will have the freedom to do the workouts on their own, as monitored by the staff, however the first sign of loafing and we are doing the prison workout.  I usually had to do a week or two of prison workouts every summer, however that's all it took to get the players back on task!  If you are out on the track or field, set up all drills prior to player arrival, this way there is no down time when you are conditioning or running routes, or agilities.  Keeping the tempo up also ensures that the workout will quickly and smoothly, thereby getting the players back to their daily lives.  Remember, these are NOT college athletes here, they have not devoted their life to the game of football.  Don't make working out a burden, make it a necessary evil, and then add some fun in as you go!



Keep up that tempo!!!



Mini-Camps

For those that are allowed to, mini-camps are a great way to break up the monotony of the summer workout.  I used to  hold a few of these each summer, with a very large one at the end of the summer.  I'm going to share with you what I did, and hopefully you can find some of this quite interesting. 

• Position-specific mini-camp- I have held several of these through the years.  All it is, is simply having a position, or group of players arrive early or stay later and work on position-specific drills.  Early on, when I was a defensive coordinator (DC) and defensive back's (DB's) coach, I had my DB's stay about 15 minutes after every workout session to do footwork.  Other coaches hopped on the bandwagon and did the same thing.  I've also had mini-camps I would do during the day and have all the incoming freshmen come in and participate.  This is an excellent tool at evaluating your JV talent, and it gives an opportunity for the younger players to soak in the offensive and defensive schemes without the fear of messing up with the older kids around.  As with any of this, whatever you do, have a plan and work the plan.  Each mini-camp should have a target goal of what you want to achieve. 
• Conditioning mini-camp- I did this mini camp as it got closer to the end of the off-season.  I wanted to do this to get the players acclimated to the heat and stress put on their bodies by having to perform in the heat.  I've done anything from simple sprints to plyometrics, the content is not the issue here, it's the actual camp itself.  I think this camp really benefited our lineman, who were packing on the weight and lifting heavy, become acclimated to the heat and begin to get used to carry around their new body weight. 
• Team mini-camp- I did this the past 3 years, and it is a TON or work, but well worth it.  I basically had a "lock-in" format where players reported to the school on a Wednesday evening.  They were instructed to bring all the necessary items they would have to have on a camping trip, as they would be living in the gymnasium.  Players would check in from 7 P.M. in the evening to 10 P.M. that night.  Then all the gates would be shut and locked.  No players could have vehicles on campus.  They also could not leave without a parent present (we rarely had anyone leave).  For 3 days we lived together, ate together, and slept together at the high school.  What a team building experience!  To this day, I still have players saying how much they enjoyed, what we called our "Fall Camp".  It wasn't just football either, we had several guest speakers, and business and organizations from around the town prepared the meals.  We also watched movies, and special FCA events as well.  Some of this might not fit where you are at, but for the team building aspect of it, there was nothing better.  I may, in a later post, go into the details of what we did, and how we accomplished it.  Send me email or comments if you'd like to hear more.  Basically, we got 3 good days right before the "official" start of the season to condition and go over the mental portion of the game that seems to get so rushed in the early days of fall camp.

Not everyone can do a mini-camp, or pre-season camp.  However, if you can, I recommend it, if for nothing other than team building.  Check your state rules and regulations regarding this matter and see what you can and can't do.  Whatever you CAN do, will go a long way to helping your team in the fall.

Competition
Creating competition is something that's been thrown about the past few years, with little to no "real" explanation.  Most of us, as football coaches, know what competition is, the problem is how to incorporate into your summer lifting and conditioning programs.  I will share some things I have done, and some things friend and colleagues of mine have done and you can go from there.  The sky's the limit though when it comes to this type of stuff, so use your imagination.

One of the first things I did, when I got my first head coaching job, was to try and establish toughness, and find who my toughest most physical players were.  Well, what better place than on the wrestling mat!  We would pair guys up by position and have them wrestle.  At first, we didn't do it for long, 45 seconds or so, as most guys tired out very quickly.  Wrestling opened up all kinds of information on our players, such as who the alpha-males were, what players were "naturally strong", who was in the best shape etc.  It also doubled as an excellent version of conditioning. 

I also divided the entire team up into off-season teams and we had several competitions that we coined as our "Summer Challenge".  At the end of spring football, we gathered our players in the cafeteria and had a mock draft.  Seniors who had made all their off-season lifting commitments or had been a part of a sport, were selected as captains.  We usually averaged around 10, 10-man teams.  Each team had to have at least 1 freshman, and 1 offensive or defensive lineman.  Then we arranged the picks and put together the rounds.  At the very end, each team also got to draft their coaches as well (this was quite hilarious at times).  Once the teams were assembled we took down the names and established a contact list.  It was the captain's requirement to stay in contact with his team.  The Summer Challenge consisted of teams competing in different games/functions throughout the summer to gain points.  The team with the most points at the end of the summer won.  Usually this consisted of an article in the local newspaper, a T-shirt, first in line at meal time, and first to pick out their equipment for the fall. 

To gain points, the teams were graded on the following items:

• Weight room attendance- each team member, got 1 point for every day they were in the weight room.
• 7 on 7/Lineman Games attendance (will talk more about this later)- each team member got 5 points for attending these events.
• For every pound a team members max went up, they got 1 point, for every pound the max went down, a point was deducted.
• Attendance at camps- team members who attended summer camps and team camps were awarded 10 points for every camp attended.
• 4-on-4 game attendance- We played 2 games per week and players were awarded 1 point for attending and participating in these game.
• Miscellaneous- a team member could be awarded up to 5 additional points for miscellaneous items such as working youth camps, fundraising, or simple things such as helping to inventory equipment etc.

What really made this go, was giving the captains the contact list of their team members.  This allowed the captain to call a guy who was not showing up and put the pressure on him.  Now, instead of a coach calling and bending a player's ear, it was a peer doing so, and the players were more apt to show up.  We saw our average number of players in the weight room soar from just under 25 per day to around 45 per day after implementing our Summer Challenge.  Players who were known for skipping out on weight sessions began to show up and participate.  I cannot tell you the benefits we reaped from doing this, and even though it does take some time and effort, it is well worth it.



Make peer pressure work for you, not against you!!!

 

 One item listed above that was a helped create competition was our 4-on-4 football league.  This was interesting, and took some time to develop, but it really boosted our weight room attendance.  4-on-4 is basically touch football played by teams of 4, the field length being the standard width of a normal football field (53 1/3 yards).  The width of the playing field is 25 yards.  The field is divided in half, and the end zones are standard 10 yard deep endzones.  All of this can easily be marked with cones or pylons.  Players have 3 downs to get across midfield, and then an additional 3 downs to score.  The ball has to be snapped by a center, and you must have one additional player on the LOS at all times.  Once the snap is started the quarterback (QB) has 7 seconds to get the ball off or it is counted as a sack.  Completions cannot be advanced, and the ball is down where the pass was caught.  Interceptions and fumbles are dead where they occur.  There are two 15 minute halves that have running clocks, and a 5 minute halftime.  That's the basics, if you want to learn more about it, email me, and I'll give you what I got.

I also did a 7 on 7 passing league with some teams around our area.  I was hesitant to do this, as we did not have the best facilities in the world, but I'm glad I did.  The 7 on 7 league did 1 of 2 things, it had us competing with other teams, which we all know is better than just competing against yourself, and it allowed us to raise money.  We charged a $200 entry fee, and also had a concession stand open during the games. 



They do it...

Being a former offensive lineman, I didn't want the big guys left out, so we also had lineman games.  The cost of the linemen games were a part of the 7 on 7 fee, so we had quite a crowd around our place one day a week.  The linemen did everything from tire flips, to lifting competitions, sprints, and even a truck pull around the track! 

Like I said in the beginning, use your imagination, and you can see where you end up.  Our weight room attendance more than doubled from the time I took over, until I left, and I attribute it to the items I listed above and in my first post (which can be read here).  You have to make your off-season workouts the place to be, or else you won't get your players in there. 

In my next post, I'm going to talk about 1 of the most important elements of a good summer program, and that is team building.  If you aren't using the summer to build camaraderie amongst your team, you are wasting valuable time.  I hope these have been informative and if you have ideas you have used, post them in the comments section, or email them to me, I will feature a "readers post" section if I can get enough ideas in here.  Keep forging ahead with your off-season programs guys, fall will be here before you know it!




TRUSTFALL!!!!


Duece

The Dog Days of Summer

Well, it's as close to summer as we are going to get, and most of you should have your teams in the weight room and on the field running routes and pushing sleds etc.  One of the age-old problems with the summer off-season programs is attendance.  I constantly hear coaches asking "How can I up my attendance at the weight room?".  Well, that's what this post is for!  I'm going to share some things with you, that I have done in the past to "spice" up the summer off-season. 




Spice it up!!!

Let's not forget, summertime, to the high-schooler, is a time for getting away from the usual grind, hanging out with friends, and for some, a chance to make a little extra money.  For your football player, there are going to be a TON of distractions tugging at his schedule, and he is going to have to make choices.  You are in competition with girls, family vacations, hanging out with friends, and making money.  Tough competition to say the least!  If you know this going in, then you will be able to design an off-season program that will let YOUR weight room be THE place to be in the summer.  For those coaches that have the old stagnant ideas of "they should be here", or "if it meant as much to them as it does to me", please, don't read any further.  If you can't expand and adapt your off-season program to the football player of the 2000's, then it's time to hang it up my friend.  I'm going to list some things I've done to increase the participation in the weight room and in my off-season program.  This is NOT a cookbook on how to get kids to come to the weight room, yet a guide that may open up your mind to some of the items your off-season program may need.

I'm going to spread this one out a bit, talking about the following over the next several posts:

• Facilities
• Staff
• Workouts-Mini Camps
• Competition
• Team Building

In this post I'm going to talk about facilities and staff.  These are two very important elements in any off-season program.  So, here we go!

Facilities
The first item of importance are your facilities.  Not all of us are blessed with a state-of-the art weight room and practice facilities, so please don't roll your eyes when I mention this.  If you want to compete with your football player's girlfriend, then the weight room needs to at least be appealing to the senses.  Now I'm not advocating everyone head to the A.D. right away to rebuild the weight room, believe me, I've been some places where not only would mentioning revamping the weight room get you laughed at, it would even get you fired!  Make due with what you have.  It doesn't cost that much money to touch up paint on the walls and equipment, or even hang some nice posters on the wall.  Make sure the bathrooms work, and there's a secure place for the players to secure their belongings. 

Make your own posters with slogans for the upcoming season, or have photos from previous seasons.  One thing I did, was I had team photos all around the room in our weight room, with the year and record located on the bottom of each picture.  I also had photos of previous players in their college uniforms hung in an area we called the "Wall of Fame".  These little items will go a long way to giving your weight room that "championship builder" look that kids are searching for.  Also, make sure all the equipment is working and in it's proper place.  Nothing is a bigger turn-off than going to do leg curls, but you can't find the pin to adjust the weights.  Your players should NOT have to improvise when lifting or training.  I cannot stress this enough, all this does is put doubt in their minds as to why they are there instead of at the movies or at the beach.



Nice beach!

Another important item is cleanliness.  The weight room should NEVER be dirty!  All weights and workout components should be put up at the end of each session.  This allows players to get in and get their workout done.  This is very important with older players who may also be trying to manage a summer job.  Time is of the essence, so make sure your weight room is not only clean, but ergonomic as well.  Divide up the weight room into common stations if possible.  Don't make your players travel from one side of the weight room to the other, just to go from squats, to power cleans.  This leads to distractions such as socialization, which deter from the players getting their workouts completed. 



This doesn't look productive


The atmosphere in the weight room is of utter importance when attracting your football players.  Young people nowadays love listening to music.  A stereo system in the weight room is a must.  If you don't have the means for a stereo system, see if one of the players will volunteer one.  If not, at the very least let them listen to their IPOD's, as this keeps them in their comfort zone.  A word of caution though, only allow the players to use one earpiece at a time, that way if you have to give instructions quickly, or to warn of danger etc., your comments will be heard.  Allow the players to pick the music, but only if it's clean.  I usually had them tune in to a local radio station if possible, that way I knew the music would be appropriate for the age group.  This is just another simple "comfort" you can add to your weight room to make your players feel more at home when they are there.

If you have outside facilities such as a track or field, and you have workout components for these areas (sleds, parachutes, cones etc.), then make sure these are stored/located in an area that is easily accessible.  Make sure if you have something planned for the track or field that day, you set it up before hand, again, time is of the essence.  The quicker you can get the players on their merry way, the less of a "task" working out becomes. 

If you use indoor facilities, such as a gymnasium, make sure it is picked up and ready to use.  I've rarely used the gym mostly because I've been at places where the basketball coach was a "touch-me-not" with his gym, but if you have this and can use it, by all means do so!  Again, have everything ready, nothing loses momentum more in a workout (or practice for that matter) than players waiting for you to set up drills.




I could use one of these!


Again, I'm not saying go out and tear down the old weight room for a new one, we all know that is out of the budget of 99% of the coaches who may read this.  Never look at what you CAN'T do, always focus on what you CAN do, this will make things a lot easier.  A simple coat of paint on a sled made some former players of mine think we had gotten something new.  I didn't have the heart to tell them, it was just their old sled with new paint on it!  Whatever it takes right!

Staff
You can't do an off-season program by yourself.  That being said, if you think it's difficult getting your players to the weight room in the summer, try getting your staff there!  I usually inform my staff that their stipend covers off-season workouts.  What I do is try and use simple math for the summer time.  I require the players to make 80% of their lifts in the summer, so the coaches should also have a requirement.  What I usually did was take the total number of lifting days and divide it by the amount of people I had on staff.  The most I ever had on staff was 8 (including myself), so we usually had around 33 lifting days, just take 33 and divide by 7 and that was the required amount of days each staff member was to be present.  This usually worked out to be four to five days, so I simply put it as coaches needed to each make a week.  I let them pick their weeks and we went from there.  Some would be there more than that.  I had an offensive line coach that was there almost every day.  What a lifesaver!  My last season as a head coach I was fortunate enough to have raised enough money fundraising that I could pay a 1/2 stipend to one of my assistant coaches and he was our strength and conditioning coach!  This was a 7 week period with 1 week of vacation.  Fancy title for the small amount of resources we had, but it worked.  It also helped that my coach looked like Arnold McMillan (well, not quite that big, but he was huge)!!! 

I also gave perks to the staff members who made the most days.  The one with the most days had the easiest pre-game assignment throughout the season.  The coaches who chose not to show up, or only show up the minimum amount got the tougher jobs.  You'd be surprised how a season of cleaning the visitor's locker room will motivate staff members to do their summer duty!  I've even given out everything from gift certificates to money for staff members who went above and beyond the call of duty in the summertime.  Coaches need to be rewarded too, remember they have families of their own, and use the summertime to vacation and spend time with loved ones.  I also had coaches that worked other jobs, work with your coaches, not against them.  Facilitate their participation, and they will be more motivated when they are working with the players.  Which leads me to my next point.




Even the "big dawgs" make time for family

Staff motivation in the off-season is key.  Most assistant coaches I've had have not been all that "geared up" for off-season lifting and conditioning.  This, to me, is no different than showing up to practice with a poor attitude.  Stress to your staff, that they need to bring their "A" game when it comes to enthusiasm.  Players feed off their coaches, and they can tell when you don't want to be there.  What does it say to a player, who is already wondering why he ditched the movies with his girlfriend, when he sees you looking unmotivated and lackluster?  It tells him you don't care to be there, then why should he?  I guarantee the next day this player is with his chick rather than in the weight room.  Again, make the weight room the place to be, this includes for the coaches.  I've asked coaches to leave that were withdrawn or unenthusiastic.  I figure your getting paid to be here, make that shit up if you have to! 




Coach Boom knows ENTHUSIASM!


Some of this sound harsh, especially to the assistant coach with the young wife and kids, and all this new free time with summer's off, however put the shoe on the other foot.  Especially those aspiring to be a head coach someday, it is your head on the chopping block on Friday nights.  You would want your staff to be at the weight room, so why do any different for the guy you are working for, remember the door swings both ways!

So now that we have facilities and staff taken care of, in the next post I will look in to the work-outs and doing your own mini-camps (if so allowed), and doing things to create competition.  Again, I'm sure there are many more methods than I have, I'm just sharing.  Heck, post some of your ideas in the comments section, let's see what's out there! 

Special shout out to Coach Hoover for helping me "spice" up the ol' blog logo!  Check out his site here to read more on a great passing concept known as levels. 

Later!




Til' we meet again!

Duece

The 4-3 Scream and Splatter

I came across this defense, by sheer accident (which you may download here) several years ago while helping a friend.  I had a phone call one evening from an old college friend who was the head coach (HC) and offensive coordinator (OC) at a small school in Southwest Florida (SWFL) and was facing a team that had an ultra-aggressive 4-3 defense.  He sent me some film on them, and was trying to figure out how to attack them with the split-back veer.  After watching several films on this opponent I was very intrigued to see the radicalness of the defense.  The interior tackles sat in 2I's most of the time, and the defensive ends (DE's) were in a radical tilt, almost ninety degrees to the traditional way of aligning.  The DE's looked right down the line of scrimmage (LOS) to the ball.  The outside linebackers (OLB's) were stacked right behind these ends at about four to five yards off the LOS.  The middle linebacker (MLB) was the same depth and directly over the center.  The DE's were the kicker though, they came off the LOS like missiles, and simple put, wrecked everything in their path.  It was quite astonishing to watch, and I could see why my friend was calling, as they were a very rambuncious bunch to try and move the football against.  The secondary seemed to be playing some sort of two deep man under coverage, maybe even a version of quarters.  The corners appeared to be in man with the safeties twelve to fifteen yards deep, and rocking back on the snap.  They would rotate the secondary into cover 3 when they got trips or twins, they never broke the box, always keeping their 4-3 intact.  The defense was aggressive and attacking in nature and they, simply put, got after your ass! 

The conversation, and films led me to try and research the defense, however, information was not easily obtained.  One day when posting on the Huey board, I had a coach, from Wisconsin respond to me and tell me about a "tilted 4-3" in their area that was similar to the defense I had been describing in my posts.  He told me to check out Lancaster High School, in Lancaster WI.  So I gave their head coach a call, and he directed me to their defensive coordinator (DC) who was very helpful.  He sent me information on the defense, and told me they got it from somebody out in California.  He did not elaborate but we spoke several times about his defense, the pros, the cons etc.  Over the years, from my first post about the defense, people have contacted me and asked me about it.  I wanted to put a post out here that some may use, to get a first-hand look at this defense.  I want to preface, I did not run this defense, I merely took some things out of it, that I will discuss later.  I am going to break down the defense from the ground up, and then go into what I used out of each section.  Hopefully this will shed light on a very aggressive and attacking 4-3, that some have never seen.  Shall we?

Defensive Line
In the Scream and Splatter (S&S) defense, all 4 of the down linemen are tilted at a forty-five degree angle to the LOS.  The basic shades are your standard over front shades with a one and five techniques to the weakside, and a three and nine technique to the strong side.  The defense I saw on film, did not do this, they had 2I's in the interior, and the strong end played a seven technique (inside shade of the tight end).  The reasoning behind the tilt is to better facilitate our old friend, block down, step down (BDSD).  The author of the defense explains that this allows them to execute the "splatter" technique against gap blocking schemes.  As far as defensive line manuals go, this one is not much different except for the tilt.  I got some film on Lancaster, and they are not your "war-daddy's" by any means, but they do get after it.  The main reason is the simplicity in the teaching of the defensive linemen (DL).  They key their "trigger" as it is called and react from there.  After that, they have the normal reactions to the blocking schemes that you see most four man front defenses doing these days. 

The other key for the DL is the actual "splatter" technique.  This is practiced daily, and there is a diagram in the packet they sent me of how to set up the splatter drill.  The interesting thing is they do not talk about depth or angle, they simply talk about getting off the ball, and coming down the LOS and attacking the upfield armpit of the blocker.  The diagrams basically speak for themselves, so I will not elaborate further.

I did not tilt all four of our linemen, the number one reason is that we were seeing so many zone teams, I felt it would allow our inside guys to be reached too easily.  I did tilt our DE's, but not radically like the SWFL team mentioned earlier.  We simply put our inside had down, and then turned our body inside enough to see the football.  I actually changed our term wrong arm to Lancaster's term splatter and it's quite a funny story.  In my first year as a DC at my last gig we were teaching kids the wrong arm technique when I overheard one young player tell another "why are we learning this, if it's the wrong way to do it".  Ahh, the teenage mind!  So, after that, we decided to call our wrong arm, the splatter.  The kids liked it, it made sense to them, and the rest is history!




"Gnarly dude"


Linebackers
The linebacker play in the S&S defense is what really caught my attention.  The way they taught it, seems overly aggressive, yet there was an effectiveness to it, that I bought in to.  All three linebackers (LB's) read the fullback, or near back in offset backfield sets.  The LB's had but one read, intersect the path of the FB.  That's it!  All they had to do, was to intersect that path, and leave the rest to the safeties behind them (we'll talk of that later).  This made for a defense that looked as though it was blitzing every down.  The LB's seemed almost a step ahead of the opposing offenses on film.  It was quite a sight to watch.  Now, I know what you are thinking, "Why not just run counter?".  You would be right, but the safety play behind it, made this nearly impossible.  The LB section shows the drill on how to teach the LB's to intersect the path of the fullback.  They set up trash cans and ran through all the various series of plays, and how the LB's should react to these (they called it the "Barrel Drill").  The other interesting thing is that they involved the safeties in this drill as well.  As you will see in their run fit section, this safety involvement is critical to the defense.

We took the basics of this read system and used it, however we added a few other things to it to help us with the counter runs and bootlegs.  Our MLB, had these exact reads, but our OLB's had a few other things added to it.  I also started using our safeties in run fit drills, and in inside run drill.  This payed huge dividends as it allowed the safeties to see just where they should fit, with out having to worry about the pass threatening them. 

Defensive Backs
The safeties were the crux of the S&S defense.  They were the "clean up" guys.  Basically, they made the LB's underneath of them "right" by fitting where needed.  Now, the S&S isn't for the faint of heart, as they sit in cover 0 all the time.  Yep, that's it, one coverage!   As you can see, they wanted to keep things simple.  So, back to the safeties and how they "fit" into the defense.  The safety on the action side of a run play, was no different than your quarters or 2 read safety in that he was the force player.  The backside safety was the kicker, he had to clean up all counter, bootleg, and reverses.  The backside safety made the LB furthest away from action, be able to "scream" to the football without fear of the cutback or the counter.  This was important because it led to the defense outnumbering the offense at the point of attack (POA).  This is exactly how I played it out of my 2 read/Blue coverage scheme as we've read before (go here if you haven't already). 

The corners in this defense are primarily man to man guys.  In the playbook you can see that they gave the corner 6 basic reads and worked those to death.  I've often had this philosophy myself, corners have a tough enough job, no need in worrying them about the run.  Well, the S&S is perfect for your cover corner. 

The S&S in Recent Years
I have not had the luxury of talking to Lancaster's coaches in over 3 years now, however the last time I talked to them, they were having some problems with spread formations, most notably 2x2 teams that ran zone read.  I have no doubt that they have come up with  a scheme to defeat these offensive tactics in the recent years, as many on the Huey board have said they still remain an elite team in Wisconsin. 

In Florida, my buddy tells me nobody runs the defense that got my interest started all those years ago.  It's a shame, as the coach that ran it, according to my friend had a very impressive record to go along with his defense.  Nonetheless, the defense has gone the way of the Dodo bird in that particular area.

I hope this was insightful to those who have been asking about the defense.  I think the S&S has excellent merits, and is a sound system that seems very simple to install.  I know it caught my eye when I first saw it, and I definitely stole all I could from the information I gathered on the S&S.  Please feel free to email me about this topic, however, please remember I did not run this defense in its entirety, only select portions.  Here is some footage I got from Lancaster, sorry about the cutup quality, I had to cut it myself.  Enjoy!

Other Happenings
Coach Hoover has a GREAT article on "How Much to Install".  He's a man after my own heart, especially linking to the great Tony DeMeo.

Football-Defense has a very good article on the basics of Turning a Program Around.  Very good read, and a very good site, I must say.

Over signing won't ruin the SEC, writes Chris Low in his ESPN blog.  Something tells me he's right, and I love Steve Spurrier's quote at the end of the article.  The Ol' Ball Coach is still a hoot!

Duece

2 Read/Blue Coverage Revisited

Ok, I know I said my next post was on the 4-3 Scream and Splatter, but I have had a TON of emails over the past few weeks asking me questions about some route combos giving Blue coverage some troubles.  Since there has been so many questions, I felt I would answer them on here and see if I could help out as many as possible.  So here goes.

Out by 2, Vertical by 1
This is the age old cover 2 beater.  Again, it's all in how you play it.  I'm going to described some things I've done in the past, you can take if from there.



1. It's all in the technique- The corner is the key here.  He HAS to squeeze #1's route to the safety, and not be concerned with the route by #2.  The corner will only come off of 1, when he sees the ball thrown to 2.  After he squeezes 1's route, he should be in a trail mode, with eyes on the QB, looking for the the throw to 2, or a wheel route by 2 (remember the corner in Blue is swing deep of 2, so he has the wheel route).  The curl/flat player, is also critical, in he needs to work to get to the throwing lane on the out by 2.  This can discourage the throw on the out, and allow the corner to carry the vertical of 1.  The other technique issue is the safeties alignment.  If he's too far inside, he cannot get to #1.  I have played the safeties as close as 2 yards outside #2 (I'm talking as if #2 is attached to the formation) to as wide as 5 yards.  Keep these things in mind before doing any of the following.
2. "Me" call- The me call tells the corner, that it's basically man and the corner will take the vertical and out by 1, and the safety will take the vertical and out by 2.  Anything else and they just zone their 1/4 of the field.  This still puts you in a bind, but is very sound if your safety is having trouble getting to #1's vertical route.  Also helps with any confusion you might have in the depth of routes (this happens quite often to the youngsters when installing Blue coverage).

3. Play true Quarters- If you do this, be prepared to adjust your front if you are a traditional Miami 4-3 Over front guy.  The curl/flat/swing deep of 2 player must have leverage on #2, so he must be in an outside alignment on #2.  If you are in the Under, no problem, same as if you run a 7 technique defensive end (DE) then you are ok.  Otherwise you are going to be changing your front to cover 1 possible route combo...not recommended.

Good Technique vs. Fade/Arrow route combo, corner must reroute #1 to SS.



Blue "Me" call



Quarters vs. Fade/Arrow Combo

 

Curl by 2, Post by 1
This is an old Quarters coverage beater, and can work on Blue coverage if not properly repped.  How I handle this is with repetitions in practice.  The corner has got to be communicating to the safety "IN, IN, IN" on the post route by #1.  The corner will high shoulder the post the entire time, as he does not have leverage to undercut it.  The safety will pedal out, and upon hearing the "IN" call by the corner will continue to pedal out, looking to work under the post, and still attempting to maintain over-the-top leverage on the curl route by #2.  The curl/flat player is your man here, as well as the inside hook player.  Their drops and angles must discourage the throw to #2. 




Post/Curl


Scissors
I saw this early in my career as a defensive back's (DB's) coach, and haven't seen it in a while.  Scissors is where #2 runs a corner route at the same depth that #1 runs a post route.  There are 2 trains of thought here, and neither are incorrect so long as you are consistent in your teaching.  The base rule for my Blue coverage is that the corner and safety NEVER cross, so when the safety communicates the "out" and the corner communicates the "in", we executed what we called a "banjo" technique where the safety broke and took the post, and the corner worked to take the corner route, basically switching men.  This was easy to teach, because we told them, yes both were vertical, but when they crossed 1 became 2 and 2 became 1 and your rules still hold true (safety= 2 is vertical, man 2, corner= 2 is vertical man 1). 
The other thing we did, when guys were struggling with banjo, was to tell them once it's man, it's man...STAY WITH YOUR DUDE!  That was even simpler than the above, and most kids I coached preferred it.  However, you need to be very careful with people trying to run pick or rub routes as this can turn into 6 quickly!




Banjo Technique

Man Technique



Smash
I have had a lot of questions on smash, and to be honest I'm not sure why.  I've not had a lot of problems over the years with the smash game, guess I'm just lucky.  Smash to me, is a corner route by 2, and a hitch or quick out by #1.  The safety here is obvious, he's man on 2 since 2 went vertical.  Now he's got some leverage issues, but not like you would if you were playing Robber where he's inside #2.  Remember the safety, in Blue coverage is OUTSIDE the #2 receiver.  The corner is the kicker here, he has to see 2 vertical, and when he hears the "out" call by the safety, he now knows it's smash and must cushion off #1 to a point where he has leverage on both throws.  This does 2 things, puts indecision in the QB's mind as to who the corner is playing, and gives the curl/flat player a chance to get his read and expand into the throwing window.  Again, it comes down to technique and how the routes are distributed and played.




Smash


Wheel by 2, Post by 1
This is no different than Scissors in my opinion, however I don't like the "Me" (man) call to this route combination.  If you run the me call, the safety has got to be schooled to keep inside leverage on the wheel, and I have found this to be difficult, especially if a team likes to run a lot of out routes by #2 (especially arrow routes).  Again, this comes down to "banjoing" the routes.  The corner sees the out by 2, reroutes 1 and continues to trail.  The corner is the swing deep of 2 player and must keep his eyes and leverage on this route.  Once 2 turns upfield, the corner MUST leave 1 and work for leverage on 2.  The safety, upon seeing the out by 2, is now flying to work to inside leverage on 1 thinking "fade, fade, fade" (worse case scenario), so when 1 runs his post, he's actually running right into the teeth of the defense, the safety will have excellent leverage on the post route at this point, and it now all turns into man coverage again. 
If you get caught in a "me" call, work your safeties in staying over the top of #2's route.  They cannot try and get in the throwing window here, that's what the curl/flat player's job is.  Remember all "me" is doing, is telling the corner, that the safety has the vertical and out of 2, which includes the wheel, so your safety must maintain his leverage to be able to turn and run with the wheel route once 2 turns upfield. 




Blue vs. Post/Wheel Combo



Blue Me vs. Post/Wheel Combo

I'm sure there are more ways to skin cat here, and probably more route combinations that need to be worked on.  Remember, rep your technique and your reads, DAILY.  This is so important, I cannot stress this enough.  If you are going to play pattern read coverage, you can't just work the reads 1 day a week, these must be done daily.  Hope this helps, now back to the Scream and Splatter!

Guys, some very good reading, check out these links below:

Stever Spurrier proposes a new way to pay athletes- Really?  How about when those athletes leave early for the draft, can they then "owe" the University they were at?  Just sayin'!

Brophy's been active with 2 great posts, the newest on coverages, and a great piece with a ton of Saban information, including Alabama's 2008 playbook!

School's about out for the summer for most, pound those weights men, Fall will be here before you know it!




Hit that weight room boys!


Duece