Ben's Coaching Pages

The Rules * Useful Links * Offense * Running a staff * The NFL * Coaching Books

I played football in High School.  Well, o.k., I didn't play very much - my entire Varsity career amounted to about two minutes in two years.  I was, however, a regular on the Junior Varsity where I distinguished myself as a player of very little talent.  What I did have, however, was a head for the game - by the time I was a senior I knew what almost every player did on every play and I understood the concepts.

After I completed my senior season my head coach, Dave Carson, asked me if I'd come back and help him as an assistant coach working with the wide receivers.  I'd never really considered coaching before, but it sounded like a great idea so I anxiously agreed.

I've had the opportunity to work with a number of high school coaches and, in my opinion, Dave Carson is a true professional.  He really ran an organized staff, treated his assistants with respect and helped me tremendously in my quest to learn the game.  At the same time, we managed to have a lot of fun, and win more than our share of games.

Fortunately I turned out to be a much better coach than I was a player.  Here are a few of the things I've learned...

The Rules

I have two main rules that players on my team are expected to follow.

1.  Never do anything to embarrass the school, the athletic department, the team or yourself.  Remember that at all times you're a representative of all of those groups and try to conduct yourself with pride and poise.

That means no trash talking.  That means no cutting class or being disrespectful to teachers.  It means conducting ourselves as athletes and good people.

2.  Don't walk on the grass (unless instructed to do so by a coach).  If there's grass under their cleats they're either standing or running.  The actual movement isn't the important part - it's the awareness.  Being conscious that they are on the field and that this field is special.

This rule might seem a little hokey - the idea is to pay respect to the players who've worked and sweated, bled and smiled, won and lost on that grass in the years past.  In the coming years the next generation of players will pay the same respect to them.

Another guideline I found I had to install was about taking off the helmet during games.  Unfortunately the pros and college players who are their role models got into the habit of ripping their helmet off after every good play so they could pose for the cameras.  I told my players that if they took their helmet off during the game, without permission, they could leave it off because they were done.  I don't recall any of them testing me on that. <grin>

Running a Staff

Every staff needs to have a balance - if all of the coaches on the staff are the rant and rave type or they're all the X & O intellectuals then it just doesn't work.  You need to have different personalities (who can work together) so that you have a coach who can rant and rave, a coach who can analyze film a coach who can plan, a coach who can handle the administrative tasks, a coach who can be a disciplinarian, and so forth.  Some coaches can do more than one of those - rarely can one do all of them.

The head coaches' most important job is putting his assistants in a position to be successful.  That means respecting them, guiding them and unifying their purpose.  Keep the focused, give them advice, never criticize or correct them in front of the players or to the players, listen to their opinions.  I've worked with head coaches who denigrated their assistants in front of the players and even tried to turn the players against the assistant coaches!  As you might imagine the coaches who treat their assistants that way lose a lot of assistants...and a lot of games.

Have fun.  Remember, this is a game.  The players are supposed to have fun and the coaches should have fun too.

Useful Links...

CoachSchorr.com - O.K., it's a shameless plug for my own site....

American Football Coaches Association - The premier Coaches association; I was a member for all of my active coaching career and will promptly rejoin if I start coaching again.

NCAA - The official website of the NCAA.

More to come...soon...

Last Update:  Wednesday August 08, 2007                                                                                                         Contact Ben