Originally posted April 27, 2009
You read that right, but if you'd like to make sure, go ahead and read that title a couple more times.
I just had a discussion with a high school football coach of a local program who has completely failed to understand the reason and purpose for middle school and junior high football. Seriously, he's lost his damn mind.
His premise, which is one I've never endorsed, by the way, is that he "needs" (His word, and one that indicates how effective a coach he must be.) the middle schools to run his system so that he can stay competitive.
Go back and read that again, too.
I'm going to shred that argument piece by piece. I encourage you to print this blog out and take it to the next meeting you have with your coaching organization where they try to tell you that you must run what the high school runs.
The following is a word-for-word depiction of his side of our conversation and my accompanying replies, to the best of my memory. I don't think he is going to put me on his Christmas card list.
Point one: "I need the middle school to run the same things I run..."
Counterpoint: Why does a coaching professional paid a $3,000 stipend to coach at a Class AAA school in Washington State 'need' a middle school coach to prepare players for his program? Why is said coaching 'professional' unable to adequately prepare those players himself with his eight man coaching staff, $1.4 million field, $35,000 weight room, $6,000 film study equipment, and approximately nine weeks of off-season summer and spring training time?
Why does it a fall to a middle school program with a two-man staff making $900 between them, broken sled, antiquated equipment, prohibition against scouting (because it leads to 'overcompetitiveness,' whatever the hell that is), eight week season, and almost zero support from the district to teach a system you were hired to bring to us? Aren't you supposed to be the expert on this system? Isn't that why you were hired? If not, then why were you hired?
Point Two: "...so that when they get to me they already know the system."
Counterpoint: In your previous coaching history you have never remained in any position longer than four years. Your average is three seasons. Does this not indicate that it is useless to train a group of seventh graders to run your system when odds are high that you will have moved on to a greener pasture somewhere by the time they make it to the varsity level? Furthermore, I refer you to my previous counterpoint. If you're such a damn expert on the system, why the hell do you need someone else to teach it for you?
Additionally, this middle school feeds three high schools, one of which is in another district. What makes you think you're even going to get enough athletes from this program to your high school to make this a worthwhile pursuit? According to the research at JACK REED'S WEBSITE as well as the NYSCA statistics, fewer than 24% of youth football players go on to play high school football. What do you get by dividing 24% by three, and is it worth damaging the success of the middle school program?
Point Three: "At this level that's the only way I can stay competitive."
Counterpoint: No, as a matter of fact it's not. Tomales High School in Northern California has no feeder program and remains competitive-- and more so-- every year. Puyallup High in Washington has six feeder schools, only one of which runs the same system they run (and not because it is required). They consistently finish in the top 25 in Washington AAAA rankings. For every school you point to that is successful with this method, I can point to one that is just as successful without it, and probably two that are not successful with it.
Furthermore, at what point did anyone start to care about your ability to remain competitive? You are not the one on the field, and this game doesn't belong to you. It belongs to the players.
Point Four: "Middle school football doesn't really count, anyway."
Counterpoint: It counts to the middle school players who sweat and bleed to be successful. It counts to the parents who pay the bills so their sons can compete safely and successfully. It counts to the teachers who come to me looking for ways to use my sports programs to motivate students who are struggling academically. It counts to the administration that tries every year to justify keeping a program with sliding numbers due to lack of success.
In short, the only person that really thinks it doesn't count is you, and the only reason you feel that way is that you're not associated with the middle school in any capacity other than demanding that they do your job for you.
Point Five: "It's only there to develop players for high school game."
Counterpoint: That's an interesting and totally false point that indicates a complete lack of understanding of the role of athletics in the scholastic environment. Athletics has a clearly-defined purpose in school. It helps to teach life-lessons that can't be worked into the curriculum any other way. At the middle school level it also serves as a hook to assist struggling or de-motivated students who need something to cling to in order to keep the grades and learn the behaviors and social interactions that will allow them to be successful in life.
Preparing players to play football at the high school level is only an insignificant by-product of a successful middle school program. Ideally a middle school program should prepare student-athletes for life at the high school level.
Point Six: "Besides, you should run my stuff because it works!"
Counterpoint: You'll pardon me if I disagree. You've run two different systems at each of your last four schools. In the last six years you have had two winning seasons (2006 and 2008) and won one playoff game (2008). And you are supposed to be the expert with your system. Why are you making so many significant and program-altering changes to the system if it's so perfect, and why have you yourself not established a track record of significant success if this program is so great?
Furthermore, your program was developed for the high school level. Your varsity is comprised of student athletes who are considered by our state to be responsible enough to drive a motorized vehicle. Some of the student-athletes I coach are not legally allowed to be left home alone by their parents yet.
Your athletes are physically in the early adulthood stage of development. They have more finely-developed motor control, more testosterone, greater muscle development, stronger bones, and greater cognitive processing facility.
By contrast, the athletes you are demanding to run the same program are in the middle stage of childhood or early adolescence at best. Some of them have not even entered their secondary growth spurt yet. An adolescent may grow between three and six inches per year. Rapid growth of this nature generally results in a corresponding lack of coordination, while at the same time their muscle tissues are just beginning to thicken to adulthood. Fine motor control in the wrists doesn't complete development until age sixteen or later. There's a lot more to running a competent system at the youth level than simply handing your playbook to the middle school coach and pretending that you've given them a successful system.
Point Seven: "A successful high school program will help those kids go to college by providing scholarships and motivation in school."
Counterpoint: In the first place, colleges generally don't care what the won/loss percentage is for the athlete's high school. They are looking at basic skill development and raw athleticism. In the second place, you are actually harming the middle school athletes with your misguided philosophy.
If--and only if-- the middle school students stay in sports then sports can be used as a motivator. However, if they quit participating in athletics then sports will provide no motivation or encouragement for them. Coaches won't be involved in their lives, and the life lessons we got into coaching to teach will not be learned. The number one thing that drives youth players out of athletics, according to the NYSCA, is "not having fun." In most cases, "not having fun" can also be translated as, "getting the ass beat out of me every week because my coach doesn't know what the hell he's doing." (In fact, among my coaching colleagues I can point to at least twenty excellent coaches who left playing or got into coaching for precisely that reason.) More kids are going to quit middle school programs this year due to incompetent coaching than for any other reason. Every kid that quits football in middle school is one less athlete on your team, and one less successful athlete in the school in general. You should be doing everything you possibly can to promote and develop the middle school program.
In short, coach, your plan actually interferes with the education of a middle school student by driving them away from one of the aspects of school that could encourage them, motivate them, and embolden them to keep their grades up and keep themselves out of trouble. By sabotaging the middle school program in an attempt to develop your high school system with some mythical, magical idea that doing so enhances your own team is nothing more than active stupidity disguised as altruism. Before you make demands on the middle schools, try doing some research and study of football at the middle school level.
You'll be surprised what you'll learn.
~D.
NOTE: Child development information taken from:
Bee, H., & Boyd, D. (2002). Lifespan development. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
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