Dynasty & Destiny
I've fallen into another cool assignment, and it's been a good challenge.
I was asked to help out with an assembled traveling tackle football team run by Coach E, who I worked with on the 9th grade staff. He runs our local tackle football youth program.
I came on Monday and was drafted to be the OL coach. It's been an interesting challenge for me because, as it seems to work, I'm learning more by having to script out all the blocking schemes and work with the different levels of boys.
The thing I really LOVE about coaching was working with the boys last night. I went over plays with the OL (including our tight end who is an eighth-grader .... he's part smarts, part hellcat). We had to improvise a bit because my left guard and center were missing.
The back-up center stepped in, though, and was able to get some good work. He caught on quickly, but when it came time to run through plays together, the other center showed up. Sadly, it wasn't as smooth because he hadn't been introduced to some of the concepts (ie. Fire-on-backer rules, base rules, etc., and as I worked with him during some special teams time, it was clear to me that he hasn't learned any of the basics from the wing-t).
In any case, my line has three boys from the ninth-grade team and the rest are middle school kids. I love that I get to learn their names, work with them and be a part of their development as players WAY earlier than I would otherwise... and with the centers, this will be especially important. Both kids have pretty slow snaps, and need work on all kinds of fundamentals. Seems like both can block pretty decently, though, so it'll be less work initially on that.
I loved being able to see them learn the new schemes, go over plays by stepping to helmets (we don't have trash cans or dummies out there), go from the huddle, and put in some of the details I felt like we missed this season.
Coach E and I have quite different coaching philosophies in general but I know he can teach me some things. He put in this thing that I like last night - when the QB comes up to the huddle, he asks the huddle if they are ready - they respond " ready " and they repeat a few times. I like it for the fact that it's new to me and it sounds pretty cool as they get themselves pumped to play.
I don't like it because I feel we are never really prepared, and I feel a bit stressed because I haven't been able to go over the offense with Coach E like I would want. He's very busy, but they play this weekend and I won't be there... so tried to do my best to come up with a blocking scheme guide that Coach T can use if they need it.... a sample:
On Monday, most of the boys were working on muddle, and there were about six boys standing on the sideline screwing around. Most were receivers so I had them all get in two lines, facing each other and work on a passing sequence, where they threw the ball to one another, had to catch with their fingertips and look in the ball and tuck it, before throwing to the next guy. If someone forgot a step, or dropped the ball - we started over. It was funny because I don't know the first thing about being a receiver or a WR coach, but I felt like they at least got some constructive work in.
Little K made a comment to his dad when we walked to our cars that "Coach Smith even had us working on this cool drill" --- hahahahah...
I was asked to help out with an assembled traveling tackle football team run by Coach E, who I worked with on the 9th grade staff. He runs our local tackle football youth program.
I came on Monday and was drafted to be the OL coach. It's been an interesting challenge for me because, as it seems to work, I'm learning more by having to script out all the blocking schemes and work with the different levels of boys.
The thing I really LOVE about coaching was working with the boys last night. I went over plays with the OL (including our tight end who is an eighth-grader .... he's part smarts, part hellcat). We had to improvise a bit because my left guard and center were missing.
The back-up center stepped in, though, and was able to get some good work. He caught on quickly, but when it came time to run through plays together, the other center showed up. Sadly, it wasn't as smooth because he hadn't been introduced to some of the concepts (ie. Fire-on-backer rules, base rules, etc., and as I worked with him during some special teams time, it was clear to me that he hasn't learned any of the basics from the wing-t).
In any case, my line has three boys from the ninth-grade team and the rest are middle school kids. I love that I get to learn their names, work with them and be a part of their development as players WAY earlier than I would otherwise... and with the centers, this will be especially important. Both kids have pretty slow snaps, and need work on all kinds of fundamentals. Seems like both can block pretty decently, though, so it'll be less work initially on that.
I loved being able to see them learn the new schemes, go over plays by stepping to helmets (we don't have trash cans or dummies out there), go from the huddle, and put in some of the details I felt like we missed this season.
Coach E and I have quite different coaching philosophies in general but I know he can teach me some things. He put in this thing that I like last night - when the QB comes up to the huddle, he asks the huddle if they are ready - they respond " ready " and they repeat a few times. I like it for the fact that it's new to me and it sounds pretty cool as they get themselves pumped to play.
I don't like it because I feel we are never really prepared, and I feel a bit stressed because I haven't been able to go over the offense with Coach E like I would want. He's very busy, but they play this weekend and I won't be there... so tried to do my best to come up with a blocking scheme guide that Coach T can use if they need it.... a sample:
It's fun too because Mr. K, the parent of one of the 9th grade receivers, is a coach as well, and his son is such a sweet kid.
On Monday, most of the boys were working on muddle, and there were about six boys standing on the sideline screwing around. Most were receivers so I had them all get in two lines, facing each other and work on a passing sequence, where they threw the ball to one another, had to catch with their fingertips and look in the ball and tuck it, before throwing to the next guy. If someone forgot a step, or dropped the ball - we started over. It was funny because I don't know the first thing about being a receiver or a WR coach, but I felt like they at least got some constructive work in.
Little K made a comment to his dad when we walked to our cars that "Coach Smith even had us working on this cool drill" --- hahahahah...
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