Dealing with a poor practice

Coach,

Every program has the proverbial "bad practice" and how you handle it is very important to the success of your program and always will be in my opinion. First off, my personal outlook does not condone ANY COACH ON THE HS LEVEL, OR ANY LEVEL FOR THAT MATTER, RUNNING OFF AT THE MOUTH WITH LANGUAGE LIKE YOUR HC DID. To me, that is totally unacceptable. I never permitted it to happen by any of my assistants, or by any of my players, on any team I ever coached at the different levels.

The key here, coach, is to fully expect for these days to occur AND TO HAVE A SOLID PLAN TO IMPLEMENT ON THE DAYS THEY DO HAPPEN. These occasions are the ones that will test your mettle as a coach for sure. On these days, I tried to use a mixture of extra tough discipline (extra running, grass drills, bull in the ring, etc.) to get things stimulated and the players motivated to do more than just go through the motions.

I, personally, love to practice in the rain as that to me is real football (the elements, the hitting and sliding 5 yds in the mud when you make the tackle, working with the guys on how to get ready to play with a soaking wet ball, etc.) but most often the guys don't want to practice anymore when it sprinkles now days.
Here in lies the crux of the matter, THE PLAYERS NEED A REAL ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT, A CHECK UP FROM THE NECK UP, AS WE LIKE TO SAY. If you do not run tough, physical practices every day your going to have a bunch of soft players on game night!!! All this baloney of worrying about injuries during the practice week has always been way off in my book. Injuries occur, when they do, deal with them if it is practice or a real game, don't mollycoddle your guys!!! Now, I don't advocate beating your players up every day in practice as that is asnine to me to go that far. But, be tough with them, not unrealistic.

One of the tools I used that I felt really helped me when coaching HS ball ws to realize that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. After a particularly hard practice, I would go in the locker room and tell the guys to get showered as I was taking them out for Pizza. You would be surprised how all the aches and pains from practice would disappear and smiles replaced frowns. If you can't afford to do something like that, get a bug in a boosters ear and let him know you need some finances to do it with. Then, go out and have the staff mingle with the players, you make certain you talk personally with everyone on the squad from the starting QB to the water boys, just be personable and have a fun time. You will be surprised how this helps avoid them BAD PRACTICE" DAYS. I would find out at these get togethers what had everybody down that day, by being SUBTLE and not asking outright. Then, the staff and I would set about making the necessary changes IF CALLED FOR, to help us avoid another bad practice day. Those days are going to come as sure as the morning follows the night, so have a plan!

Coach Easton-TIGER ONE

Plays in which there are mental errors are repeated in practice. Pretty soon they get tired of hearing "ON THE BALL - RUN IT AGAIN"! That gets their attention - letting them KNOW you won't settle for mental mistakes (THAT, or being replaced in the lineup buy someone who DOESN'T make as many mistakes). You will get what you DEMAND as a coach - no more or no less.

REMEMBER - a poor block on the correct guy is better than a good block on the wrong guy!

PS: Maybe they are "confused". TEST them on their assignments!

WARRIOR ON LINE,

On one of those days that the players just seem to be dragging, no hustle, etc. my all time favorite to overcome it was BULL IN THE RING!!! You put guys evenly matched size wise and ability wise in the ring and tell them to have at it! I always encouraged football moves only, most of the time when we had this as a regular drill, but on days that were dragging I would tell them that the object was to put the other guy on the deck in no uncertain terms and I didn't care how they did it. I can honestly say that most often within 5 minutes the whole atmosphere had changed with guys yelling, "pick me next coach", yelling and screaming for the two guys in the ring to do their best, etc. IT ALWAYS WORKED GREAT FOR ME. We would then go back to regular practice in a totally different frame of mind and did it right for the rest of the practice!


DEAC: GREEN BAYS "STUDENT BODY RIGHT" AS WE USED TO CALL THEIR POWER SWEEP IS STILL A GREAT PLAY AND ALWAYS REMAINED A PART OF MY PLAY BOOK WHEN RUNNING OUR POWER GAME IN SHORT YARDAGE AND GOAL LINE SITUATIONS.

Coach Easton-TIGER ONE

YO LOU,

I SAW YOUR HEADING "2007" ATHLETES, WAS THAT A KNOCK ON US OLDER THAN DIRT COACHES? HEHEHE

In all seriousness, I know the NFL coaches are the very best hands down. But, as I understood the question, (it was how to motivate a dragging practice) how is that answer applicable to this situation?
You really believe that having a player know how to align properly, know his assignment, etc. is going to motivate him to hustle on a day his butt is dragging? First off, NFL teams spend very little time on fundamentals ( they are supposed to have them down flat long before they ever get to the NFL) as they spend most of their on field time preparing their parts of the game plan for that week. For an extreme example, Don Shula (when he had the great dolphin teams) was 25% on field and 75% class room!!!

It is hot, it is raining, it is freezing, etc. whatever the case may be. The guys have been in class all day with their academics, etc. and now it is practice time and their butts are really dragging. If you really and truly believe that just knowing their assignments, etc. is going to motivate them to get out on the practice field and give their all on a day like that, I think you are sadly mistaken. When you get to be a head coach, give me a call and let me know if you still believe that like you do today. No doubt at all those things that you and the NFL line coach mention goes a long ways on "normal" days but those days are not what the topic is here, at least as I understood it. Your thoughts?

Jerry

GOTCHA LOU, JUST DIDN'T RECOGNIZE THAT AS YOU LEFT THE PHD OFF YOUR SIGNATURE! HEHEHEHE

Coach Easton-TIGER ONE

NOW IF YOUR LOOKING TO MAKE BIG BUCKS, THAT'S THE RACKET TO BE IN, PROVIDED YOU OWN YOUR OWN DRUG STORE. IF YOU DON'T, THE OWNER MAKES ALL THE MONEY AND YOU DO ALL THE WORK. WELL, THAT GOES FOR ANY BUSINESS, REALLY!

Coach Easton-TIGER ONE!

Hey Karjaw,

Read your well thought out post and enjoyed it. One question: How do you tell kids who practice lousy on thursday that they had a good practice when they know better? I see very well your MOTIVATON in doing so, wanting to be totally positive the night before the game. BUT, how do you go about that as far as telling them they had practiced well when they had not? I never mastered that approach.

Coach Easton-TIGER ONE

kARJAW,

I owned an office machine business for 25 years where we would walk into a corporate office, demonstate
state of the art computers, copiers, book keeping equipment, calculators, word processing systems, etc. on a cold call basis and walk out with an order for a 20,000.00 system. I know about salesmanship as when I first started coaching and for a lot of years after, it never paid much money and we all had to have other jobs to supplement our incomes in order to take care of our families. I appreciate your thoughts and your reply.

Coach Easton-TIGER ONE

Coach:

It might seem alittle different, but all we do is start practice over again from the very beginning, you do this once and things will straighten up. We tell them that they are on their time and that we finish when we are done. I've had to use it several times over the years, the benefits are greater than the extra time you spend on the field.

uNLESS YOU HAVE A SUB-STANDARD STAFF OF ASSISTANT'S, I DON'T BUY THAT ONE PLAYA. Your absolutely right about the coaches are responsible for setting and maintaining the tempo, but if they are coaches they can't all be having a bad day at the same time and it is up to them to not let the practice lag
by NOT LETTING THE PLAYERS SLACK!!! IF YOU ARE THE HEAD COACH, IT IS ULTIMATELY YOUR JOB TO PICK UP THE PACE. Just my opinion as always.

Coach Easton-TIGER ONE