Quast

Allocating Playing Time in Youth Football, The Youth Football Coaching Nightmare:

This is often a subject many youth football coaches struggle with. The head coach is either a win-at-all-costs coach who cares little about getting all the kids in the game or hes a guy that lets the soccer mom Nazi parents pressure him into playing all the kids the same amount.

I dont think either approach is right. This is youth football, if a player comes to practice, pays attention and does his best, he should get some playing time in every game regardless of what the score is. However playing all the kids the same amount, makes no sense to me either. If Tommy comes to all the practices, pays attention to the coaches and tries his best, and Joey misses practice, is inattentive and rarely tries very hard, the two should not play the same amount of time. What message do you send to Tommy?: That excelling is not rewarded. What message does Joey get?: That slacking off has zero consequences. In this example, neither player is being done any favors, they are both being set up to fail in life, thanks to the soccer mom Nazis.

Ive coached in youth football leagues that had minimum play rules and those that didnt. The minimum play rule is set to require coaches to play kids a certain amount in every game. As a youth football coach I have always had a minimum play standard, whether there was a rule or not. Im a firm believer in getting kids into the game regardless of their ability. Now we are going to play to win, as I have both an offense and defense that can accommodate the minimum play player and not significantly impact the scheme in a negative way. But the weaker kids are going to get in and I strategically sub from the opening gun.

The way we address this with the parents and players is through a mandatory parents meeting the first day of practice. We let the parents know that each player will play X plays per week if they attend practice, listen to the coaches and hustle in football practice. But we also stress that just like in life, we will reward those that are paying better attention, playing harder and excelling, by playing them more than those that do not. We also stress previous years statistics that show we play our kids more than any other youth football team in our league and that we spread the scoring around quite a bit as well. We also stress the playing time will vary based on the game, and the players effort for the week and some weeks they will play more than others. But everyone knows they will always get the minimum standard we set, regardless of the score and that our best players will start.

I let the parents know this policy is not negotiable and if they feel uncomfortable with it that there is nothing wrong with that, but maybe we arent the right fit for their child. I always have pieces of paper in my pocket with the names and phone numbers of competing youth football programs in my pocket. I let the parents know if they are looking for better fit options, to come and get the phone numbers of other programs from me before football practice starts.

Coaching youth football well means setting proper expectations with your coaches, parents and players. Dont be ambiguous, dont surprise anyone week three of your season with your playing time policy. Let the parents know how it will be day one. That way the parents have no legs to stand on if they decide to stay. It will make your life SO MUCH EASIER getting it out of the way right in this fashion right off the bat. Its kind of like taking that band-aid off in one quick swipe. Its always much less painful doing it that way.

For 150 free youth football practice tips: Youth Football

Copyright 2007 Cisar Management and http://winningyouthfootball.com republishing this article are parts of it without including this paragraph and the links is copyright infringement. Please republish, just include the links.

Dave Cisar-

Dave has a passion for developing youth coaches so they can in turn develop teams that are competitive and well organized. He is a Nike "Coach of the Year" Designate and speaks nationwide at Coaches Clinics. His book Winning Youth Football a Step by Step Plan was endorsed by Tom Osborne and Dave Rimington.

With over 15 years of hands-on experience as a youth coach, Dave has developed a detailed systematic approach to developing youth players and teams. His personal teams to using this system to date have won 97% of their games in 5 Different Leagues. His web site is: Football Plays

Women and the NFL have joined forced to make a great partnership. In the past women have not been considered fans of football because of the violence of the game and because they were never taught the rules of the sport. Well guys, times have changed.

Ladies are becoming just as passionate and knowledgeable about the game as men are. Women are starting to have their own fantasy football leagues, their own football parties, and even their own all-women football teams.

At one time football classes were started so women could learn about the game so they could get closer to their boyfriends or husbands. Now, women enjoy football just as much as men do, and some women like football even more than men do. Women are becoming the NFL'S biggest fans and they buy the most NFL merchandise.

The NFL has finally learned what a great market that women are and now the NFL is marketing directly to women, selling NFL items like pink jerseys and pink baseball hats, NFL jewelry, and a lot of NFL clothing such as womens t-shirts, polo shirts, sweatshirts, jackets, and more.

However, I believe that the NFL should support woman and that a percentage of all merchandise sales should go to the National Breast Cancer Foundation to fight breast cancer. At my NFL merchandise website, I donate 2% of all sales to the National Breast Cancer Foundation. I feel that as a man and as a retired NFL player we have to do everything we can to help women, especially when it comes to fighting breast cancer. Please help support women, because mothers, sisters, daughters, girlfriends and wives are depending on you.

Martin Chase is a retired NFL player who now owns http://www.mcsportsfan.com, a popular NFL jerseys and nfl merchandise website.