Pros of a leadership academy,

John Torrey


Hello Colleagues,


Implementing an off-season character program with your football team has many advantages! For starters, it gives you a platform to meet with your athletes in the off-season, ensuring that your impact as their leader will be magnified. An off-season character program also gives you a chance to sustain relationships with players in a less intense competitive environment. Finally, an off-season character reinforces all the work and ideals that coaches preach during the season, a vital part of boys transitioning into men and citizens of society.


As with every program, an off-season character program comes with some disadvantages as well. Perhaps none bigger than TIME. Many of us do not solely coach football. If you are like me, you go from football into a winter sport; I coach wrestling. While there is significant time away from your football players, a much needed break from your season's end to the start of the 2nd Semester, January brings winter sports operating in full swing! We have nightly practice, along with two duals each week AND an all day Saturday tournament for wrestling. Implementing an off-season football program would be a challenge for me, though I see its benefits.


One way that I would implement at least a six week program could be used with our wrestlers competing in-season, as nearly all of them play football in the fall. I would incorporate the off-season character football program with basketball as well, partnering some of the responsibilities of its implementation, since man football players play basketball too. A six week program would take us from the first week of January through the State Wrestling tournament and State Basketball; a nine week program would lead into track, another "must" for football athletes.


I really like incorporating the 17 Laws of Leadership into an off-season character program. My program would run Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning from 7 am until 8 am when school starts. OUr wrestlers lift two of these mornings as part of our season expectations, so extending this idea out into one mre day seems like a worthwhile idea.


The themes of a nine week character off-season program would be as follows:

Week One: Belief

Week Two: Unity and Accountability

Week Three: Discipline and Attitude

Week Four: Vision and Commitment

Week Five: "Don't talk about it, be about it." - Usher

Week Six: Depth

Week Seven: Courage

Week Eight: Perseverance

Week Nine: Success


The structure for our three hours a week would look like this:

7 am - stretching and morning motivation, the coach would share a small example that fits into that week's theme with the kids. This example would align with the 17 Laws of Leadership.

7:15 - lifting and workout, according to the handbook or what our Strength and Conditioning Coach has planned.

7:45 - final thoughts, a smaller dose of morning motivation

7:55 - dismissal.


The chaos of coaching another winter sport makes the demands of implementing an off-season character program daunting, however, I beieve that it will be worth it. I plan to establish our first next year. Kids constantly need to be exposed to the ideals of high character! In a society today dominated by negative influences and shabby family morals and dynamics, it is as important as ever to sustain relationships and prepare kids for success in the future. I look forward to hearing your ideas and seeing how you would or do implement such a program.


John

Robert Shklov  


Aloha All and thank you for the great class, discussion and feedback. Glad to see there are so many great coaches all around the country. If anyone is ever interested in traveling/bringing a team to Hawaii or hosting a team from the islands on the mainland, please let me know. On my CUI or Yahoo! (Robertshklov@yahoo.com) Email accounts.

Days 1-120 - The off-season

I would want to conduct exit interviews as soon as possible. Get the outgoing seniors to share some honest feedback as they turn in their equipment and gague which juniors are ready to step up to leadership roles and which sophomores will take the leap.

Meeting with the JV/Intermediate Coaching Staffs: We would want to make a rough outline of our off-season activities, get some dates straight and check on each other's availability. JV coaches will recommend players for call up.

Call up coaches and schedule non-league pre-season games for all three levels. If we are traveling, confirm plans with administrations from both schools.

Meet with the parent committee on community service, fund-raising ideas and other team-bonding events.

Conditioning/Workouts will be organized and administered on the following days: MTWR-7am-830am or 330pm-5pm
My expectation is not groundbreaking; I want each player to improve their strength and conditioning by showing numerical progress in their lifting routines. However, I believe it is important that we practice our camaraderie as well so I will be mandating attendance at least twice a week, but the expectation is that you are working out four times a week. My rationale is that some players do better work when away from distractions at school. Some may have rehab work they cannot complete on campus but there is no other way to build team unity than to be together working towards a common goal.

Meet with the equipment managers and discuss any potential repairs or new equipment we should be ordering.

Meet with the training staff to make sure each injured athlete has an action plan to get healthy. Share any concerns with coaches of second season sports who have a football player recovering from injury.

Have a season ending meeting with my AD. Discuss any staff changes and receive feedback for the previous year. Outline current season's plan.

Meet with program coaches to discuss football philosphy> I want to make sure the Intermediate/JV football coaches know they have my full support no matter what, but I would want them to run as close to our system on both sides of the ball as possible. I do not want to tie a coach down if they have injury or roster concerns. (EX. If they don't have a nose-tackle, I don't want them playing a boy out of position where he might get hurt just because I demand they run a 3-4.)

Defensive Philosophy: In Hawaii, the offensive lines are generally pretty big. and In my experiences, Linebackers have usually been the best athletes on the team, so I would definitely lean to a defense that featured 4 linebackers or the safety acting as a rover. 3-4 or 3-3-5 would be ideal in that you can counter the beef on the offensive line with speed. In either defense, the defensive lineman need to focus on occupying the OL and controlling their assigned gap. The LB's will use their speed to be the play-makers. I favor a man free on the goal-line and a cover 3 as a base d.

I want our defense to be Aggressive: I want my defense to fly to the ball and be able to quickly diagnose plays. I would want to blitz from everywhere to keep the offensive line guessing. I want my defense to look to create turnovers, not to just bend but not break. I would love to be able to have sub packages if the opposing team/our depth allows. My defenders should come out of the game tired not because of lack of conditioning but because of the full effort exerted. I wouldn't necessarily pull my studs, but I do want to be able to give as much on-field ownership over our success as possible. I believe that if you have guys that can play, there is no use saving them until they are worn down, if someone can give me 100% effort mentally and physically and I trust him, that is better than wearing down someone so they are functioning below capacity during crunch time. That is just my philosophy though and it requires depth and trust, luxuries not always afforded, but hey, this is my ideal defense right?!

I want our defense to maintain their Discipline: It may sound a bit contradictory but I want my defense to be disciplined as well. Despite wanting to blitz and take chances to create turnovers, I want my defense to know and understand the scheme of each call so they can make a judgment as to whether or not the risk is worth the reward. Because I want to play a lot of guys, this requires each player to be responsible for learning terminology and studying film/concepts. One thing I hate are controllable penalties. Unsportsmanlike and off-sides penalties are not to be tolerated and the offending player will be pulled immediately. Depending on the severity, it will be up to my discretion as to whether he can gain re-entry to the game. (I know some penalties are bogus but I want to discourage even putting ourselves in positions to give away 5 or 15 free yards.)

Finally, I want our defense to have Accountability: I want to make sure my leaders know it is ok to demand accountability from themselves and their teammates. When someone messes up, its always OUR problem. WE will make sure to talk about it and learn from the mistake. There is never any need to be negative with someone, but the offending party also needs to know WE all count on them and finding ways to share that collective responsibility is a great way to ease the burden of a disappointed player who messed up.

Offensive Philosophy: Again, to match personnel so a broad outline of my ideal offense would be to play fast, dictate tempo and take care of the ball. I like the old-school running game, being able to just line up and run straight ahead and feel like its demoralizing for a defense to keep having to take on blockers and make hits. However, I also favor the spread passing concepts, taking the edge, overloading a zone, optioning defenders etc. While I initially thought this represents two different visions, it doesn't have to. In fact, being known for two distinct offensive traits may cause the opposing team to throw fits all week in practice preparing for our various schemes. I love to rotate out specialized groups and will try to utilize each player's strengths in different ways.

Begin our off-season leadership academy that coincides with our lifting program. The month by month breakdown includes the following themes:

•January

Lead Yourself Before You Can Lead Others

•February

Empathy, Kindness and Service

•March

Leading By Action

•April

Local-Restoration National-Conservation Global- Preservation

•May

Becoming Leader-“Less”


Days 120-127 Spring Ball

Discuss format with coaches and talk about which players we may want to try out at different positions or how to share two-way athletes.

Formulate Depth Charts (IN PENCIL!) And ID potential Special Teams players.

Install Skeleton Base D/) and concepts.

Make decisions on whom to invite to camp.

Spring Community Service Event


Days 128-158 Team Building/Character and Leadership Education

Continue off-season workouts. Can supervise but no footballs. (Dead Period)

At the end of this month we run our kids camp. We will also do a campus clean up the following day.

Work with the coaches to develop our special teams strategy. Now that we have seen what we have, we can decide what types of teams we want to run. My hope is that we have enough depth to give players who aren't starters a role. If we don't, starters playing is a risk that needs to be taken to make sure our special teams are solid.


Days 159-219 Summer Workouts

Participate in pass leagues and camps.

Make sure players who have college football aspirations are working on their applications, videos and contacting coaches. Inform them of camps that could be helpful.

Work out Team Camp Schedule with coaches. (Who will be staying overnight, when people are available, activities, guest speakers etc.)

Find team managers.

Make cuts/send down to JV

On the eve of camp:

Pre-Season Parent Meeting

1. Outline Expectations for Player and Parent

-Policies on missing practice.

-Communication is so important.

-No disrespectful comments to anyone.

-Go over player contract.

-Gameday prep.


2. Explain My Role

-Coach, mentor, teacher

-Go over the in-season character education


3. Introduce Assistants, important personnel. (Trainers, AD's, other staff)

-Make sure the parents know who is responsible for what and what is appropriate to talk to whom about.


4. Introduce Parent Committee with a Team Parent being named and secure more volunteers

-Go over major team events and calendar.

-Emphasize no preferential treatment comes with extra volunteer work.


5. Give out my Contact Information

-email, cell and appropriate times to call


6. Have them read, review and sign a Parent's Code of Conduct:

-Includes a 48 Hour Rule where they cannot talk to me until 48 hours after a game.

-They Must Attend a PCA Parent Workshop for their son to be eligible.

-They are held to the same standards as their boys. So no cursing at officials, or other players/parents.

-They may NOT talk to me about another player on the team that is not their son.


Days 220-227 Camp

Two Field sessions a day and one classroom session. At the end of the week, we'll have a pre-season game and a potluck with both teams to celebrate the beginning of the new season.

Days 228-339 Regular Season

Get to our routine! Scout-Prep-Practice-Play!

During the year we will have a value of the week and a corresponding activity. It will be broken down like this:

Value – Hawaiian Quote/Activity/Coach Responsible

Perseverance - HO‘OMAU Churchill – Conditioning – DB’s

Communication – KĀKOU Rollo May – Game Night – WR’s

Leadership - ALAKA‘I John C. Maxwell – Trust Walk – OL

Responsibility - KULEANA Abraham Lincoln – My Responsibilities – DL

Cooperation – LŌKAHI Webster’s – Team Builders – LB

Humility - HA‘AHA‘A Theodore Roosevelt – Volunteer – QB/RB

Faith - MANA‘O‘I‘O John Wooden – Trust Fall – OC

Integrity – PONO Confucius – Grade Checks/College – DC

Love - ALOHA Martin Luther King Jr. – Love Letter – HC

Service – KOKUA and HO‘OKIPA Kamehameha III – CommService – Team Parents


Days 339-356 The Post-Season

Playoffs don't change the way we prepare! Try to stay in a routine as best we can.

Post Season Banquet: As we've learned, the hard way, try to schedule this at least a week or two after the championship game. Ahem, you know, just in case.

Raymond Lynch

A leadership program is a great thing, when it is run the right way. The first thing about a leadership program is the preparation. Just like being a teacher or coach, you need to have lesson plans or practice plans before jumping into anything. The other part of running it the right way is you need to have the right people running it. It would be helpful to have all of your coaching staff a part of this, even if they cannot make every single meeting, but to show your team that they are all committed in running this. It might also be effective if you had the athletic director, principal, and/or vice principal be a part of this to show the students that the leaders in the school are dedicated to them as well.



Having a program like this can help teams, programs, and schools become even more successful than they already are. If coaches can get their players involved and get them committed to this program, they will have many leaders by the next season. Leaders do not just have to be seniors, but can also be the younger players on the team as well. It helps to develop young guys into leaders as early as possible so by the time they become seniors, they have been a part of the program, understand what the coaches expect out of them, and can relay this information to younger players on the team. By developing leaders within your program, it takes a little bit of pressure off the coaches, especially during the offseason and the summer months leading up to that first practice. Coaches can rely on these leaders to work with their team in the off hours or off days. Coaches do not have to be at every single practice or workout if the leaders do a good enough job of leading their team.



However, these programs are not always positive. There can be struggles to making it work, especially in the beginning. Coaches need to be prepared and have to take time preparing their “lessons” for each meeting. That is tough on high school coaches since most of us are also teachers or have other demanding jobs that take up a lot of our time doing other things. If coaches cannot prepare the right way, then they need to find help from other people in the building, search for help from other adults outside the school setting, or just not run one instead of taking the risk of doing it half-heartedly. Another issue could be if players just do not want to be a part of these meetings. In the beginning, coaches would explain to their team what the program was about and why they are having this program. However, some guys just want to take the offseason and relax. Others play different sports that take up a lot of their time and do not have time for this so if they even did attend, it would not be consistently and/or they would rather be doing something else while attending the meetings so they would not pay attention and learn what they should be learning. Another negative of these programs, which could possibly turn into a positive, could include guys who coaches know are the types of players who just like to fool around, don’t take the sport seriously, and other players know they are not leaders and don’t want to be leaders. Depending on their year, if they are going into their senior year, they may have changed and actually are taking it seriously to try and do well, or they may just be looking to “hang out” with their boys. It is important that coaches do everything possible to keep this group of guys together and really teach them about leadership, but have to know when to cut ties with the negativity that some players bring as well.