idea to build team confidence on defense

I think, rather than giving and taking shirts, I'd have some "award" for the defensive player that had the best game. Each week, give out "The Big Stick", or a a trophy of some sort. It's fine to have t-shirts for the players, but I don't think you want to give them out and take them back.

Thanks for the responses and insights. I like the practice idea. Healthy competition and pride is what we are trying like crazy to create. Our coaching staff is made up of 8 guys that all played for the school we now coach and we took over a team this year that was the most apathetic group of seniors I had ever been around. I been brainstorming since we finished ways to get a winner's mentality across to our players. We had a hit stick this year on defense and it was never even given out. That will be back next season and I hope to be able to give it out every week.


How about instead of making the players give the shirts back we just have the players turn them in to get washed every week and them hand them back out to the starters every week?

Greenough has an excellent point about the what if's. Also, I love those "challenge" days. A few times a year I see to it that the team I'm coaching has those days. I like to run a three-man tug-of-war. It is unbelievable how the kids get going with it.

We play a couple of different games, this is during the offseason workouts, we play a game called hoover ball, it is basically volleyball with a 6 lb medicine ball. We play on a full size court and you have to throw it over the net from wherever you catch it. You don't bump and set it, just throw and catch it. The kids like it and they get a good core/upperbody workout. We play ultimate football, we play a game where we use a med ball that is about waist high, the object is to get it past a goal line, you have to stay in a bearcrawl, no standing, no crawling on knees, can't grab or throw the ball, we will also play a game called hooper where you use a big med ball that bounces and have to get it through a hula hoop that is held by a player across the goal line, you can only hit the ball, you can't kick it or grab and carry or throw it. The "hooper" can run side to side in the endzone but can't come onto the field. We also play a game called D.E.A.T.H ball, everyone in a circle and you have to tap the ball around the circle, if it comes to you and you miss it or tap it to an unplayable place you get a letter in the word, if you get all 5 letters you have to do squat thrusts or run a sprint or something. We usually play that one if a group is waiting for the late bus or waiting for a turn in the weight room etc. We do these on days that would usually be easy days or rest days, or if they get through a workout really fast and we have some extra time. We try to work it in at least once a week. Losers have to clean the locker room or organize weights etc. You can pm me if you have any other questions.