Installing the Offense

   With two practices left in our first week with helmets, I thought it would be a good time to install our offense.  This group of kids is very attentive, and seems to be able to grasp a lot of what I am throwing at them. Because of this, I decided to give them a variety of different things on Offense.  Our league runs 10 plays offense, 10 plays defense per half.  After hours of drawing up plays, I decided to script out the 10 plays would use for the first part of the season.  I decided on 5 different formations, and we will run 2 plays per formation. We will be running an I, Power I Right and Left, Wishbone, and the T.  To keep it simple, I gave them 3 hols to run through, "Dive" being between the C and G, "Blast" between the G and T, and "Sweep" around the outside.  The play calls are Formation, Runner (RB, WB, FB), and Hole.  Luckily we have two coaches on the field during the games, so we can be sure they all know where to go.

   I want to get each kid a chance at everything throughout the season.  At this point, I cam up with 6 different back field configurations, each having 4 kids (QB, FB, RB, WB).  With 12 kids, this gave each kid two chances in the backfield.  Using this configuration for at least the first 3 games.  Each configuration will run twice in that time frame, then I will change it up so they can play other positions.

Helmets On

The kids got their equipment last week.  We are doing on week (3 days) of practice with just helmets before moving onto full equipment.  We ran the same drills that we have been doing all along. I just want them to get used to wearing the helmet.  As previously stated, 9 out of the 12 kids are new to football and its equipment.  Some of the kids played lacrosse with us, but a football helmet is a whole other animal.  After about an hour of practice, I had a few kids starting to get upset about the feel of the helmets.  After a water break, I decided to let them finish up the last half of practice without helmets.  I guess an hour on the first night is pretty good.  Hopefully we can make it through the next 2 practices with helmets the whole time, so we can move onto full pads next week.

Getting Our Feet Wet

   With our evaluation "camp" over, and teams selected, the past week we have been able to practice as a team.  We have 12 kids on the team, all but 2 playing football for the first time.  We started slowly, going over proper technique for blocking and tackling.  The drills were very basic, just straight forward block or tackle out of a 3 point stance.  Once they had that down, we added an extra element to each.  For tackling, we had the players 'shed' a blocker, and then move into the tackle.  For blocking, and had them first fire out of their stance, low, under a shield, for three strides.
   We started working on offensive plays.  I have them running out of an I-Formation, doing dives, blasts, and sweeps.  The first time we ran these drills, I had players line up at each offensive position.  I felt like the kids lined up as O-Linemen were standing around too much though.  I didn't want them getting too restless, so we did this in smaller groups.  I used cones to show where the linemen would be, just so the backs could learn the running lanes for each play.  This went much smoother.
    Next up, we are going to concentrate on the Center/QB exchange, as well as the handoffs.  We will still do our blocking, tackling and running drills, but they will be a little shorter in duration. 
   We have about another week with no pads, then hopefully we can get their helmets on them, so they can get the feel.  A couple of days like that, then we will go full equipment.  I hope to get about 2 1/2 weeks of full equipment in before our first game.

Time to get moving

   Well, the start of the football season is now only 3 days away.  Starting next week, our organization will run a one week (3 day) evaluation for all players, after which we will draft our teams and get the season going.  Here's how things run.  For the evaluation we set up 4 stations for the kids to run through each night.  All the coaches work together to run the drills, and we can take notes on kids and try to determine who we would like to draft.  This is an instructional league, so we do our best to break up the teams evenly by age group, athletic ability, and size.  The drills we run help determine speed, agility, and level of ability to block and tackle.  This not only allows us to know the athletic level of these kids, which can be quite a range at this age, but it also lets us know how much we need to teach each child.  While we start at the beginning for techniques at this age level, its good to know which kids have some knowledge going in.  Its good to have some experienced (even just a little bit) kids to help demonstrate drills and techniques to the new kids. 
   At the end of the week, we will draft our teams.  We will probably have about 4-6 teams of about 12 players.  We play 7 on 7.  All new players are allowed to request their coach, this was if a child or group of children are more comfortable together, or with a particular coach, they can have a more pleasurable first season of football.  I have about 4 kids from our lacrosse team that are all first year players so we will be able to keep them together this season.  I think this is a good way to get new kids recruited into the organization.  It allows parents to be comfortable going into a possibly new sport.  Once we determine which kids have requested coaches, we do a round robin draft to fill out the remaining spots.  Again, we do our best to accommodate any other requests, while keeping the teams as evenly matched as possible. 
   Once we are all drafted we will start up our team practices.  All the teams practice at the same field, at the same time.  We run our practices separately, but it allows us to do mini scrimmages and collaborate with the other coaches and make it a real community feel.  I think this system of evaluation, drafting, and practicing works well.  It keeps the majority the people happy, and makes a coaches life easier.

Transition

Well, we are now officially between seasons.  Lacrosse has ended and football is 6 weeks away.  I need to start getting ready and planning.  This will be my first season as Head Coach for football.  I need to figure out how I want things to run.  Since this is a 5/6 league, I will stick to the same philosophy I had with lacrosse, make it fun so they want to learn the game.  Early in the pre-season, I will concentrate on teaching proper form for blocking an tackling, while getting them used to the physical demands of the game.  We will do a lot of running and calisthenics.  For tackling and blocking everything will be done at a slow pace, with dummies.  No real contact for the 1st few weeks.  I have completed my certification with USA Football, and have been browsing their site.  They have a lot of great tools, including practice drills, and game plans.  I plan on taking the time to go through it more thoroughly, and using it to make my life much easier.  I am excited about the football season, and all it will teach me and the kids.  Stay tuned!

End of Season

   So the Spring Lax season has come to an end.  It was a great season, and I feel the team advanced by leaps and bounds.  We started much later then a lot of the other teams we played against, but held our own throughout the season.  The one great thing about the close of the season is giving out trophies to the players.  When they are this young, they get so excited about it.  For many, it is the first time they are receiving any sort of award, and the smiles on their faces is priceless.  It makes all the hours that are put in organizing and teaching worth it.
   Now for some much deserved time off for both coaches and players.  But only 7 weeks until football starts.  Who am I kidding, I better get to work.

Winding Down

The season is quickly coming to an end.  We had our last practice last night, and had a light turn out.  The good side was that I was really to work on some specifics with the kids that were there.  We have 2 more games this week to close out the season.  Its this time of year that you start to realize how much time you actually put into coaching.  Its not just the time on the field working with the kids.  Its all the prep work that goes into a season.  From the registration, to getting set up with equipment and uniforms, planning practices, come up with new drills to keep things interesting.  It really is so much fun, and I find it to be so rewarding.  Once the season comes to an end, its time to wind down, and get ready for the next season, because football is right around the corner.

What to do with all this rain

With all the rain this week, I doubt we will have any time on the field.  I planned one scrimmage and one practice for the week, but it doesn't look good.  So instead of having to take the time to plan for these things, I decided to use the time to brainstorm some new drills.  I came up with two versions of the same drill.  I'm sure others have used something similar, but these are my interpretations.  I think they may be a bit too advanced for a K-1 team, but I like to give them the benefit of the doubt and try things out.  I got the idea from a drill we used to use for Ice Hockey, it was called the 'wheel drill'.  I came up with a half field and a full filed version of it.  I will try to explain, and if anyone would like a copy, I can send the diagrams.  Here goes the full field verions:

• Set up four lines, 1) Offensive Middies at at corner of box facing far goal. 2) Defensive Middies at restraining line in middle of field.  3) Attack at corner of opposite restraining box. 4) Defense at goal line extended on opposite side of field from attack.  One cone in middle of field halfway between box and midfield on same side of field as Attack and D.  Extra balls near Def line.
• OM starts with ball and runs down field, DM begins to chase.
• When OM feels pressure he feeds Attack.
• Attack goes to net for shot, as Def plays him 1 on 1.
• After the pass from the OM, the DM circles cone and heads back up field (towards where he came from) and gets ready for a pass.  The OM heads to midfield (gets ready to play D).
• After Attack shot: If goalie makes save, he is to feed Def for a clear.  If goal is scored, Def retrieves ball from side of net and heads up field.
• Def. feeds original DM for clear.
• Original DM now goes in 1 on 1 vs original OM. 
• Attack and Def return to their lines.  Middies switch lines.

The half field version is just a 1 v 1, then the clear, or you can bring a goal to half field, and let there be a 1 v 1 the other way as well.  Once I try this out, I will let you know how it goes.

The Need for Structure

   I was reminded at last night's practice that the team is only 4, 5 and 6 year olds.  After having success with new drills on the previoous practice, I figured I'd draw up a few more.  I started with a game of 'tag'.  The players that were 'it' needed to tag the other players stick heads.  I figured; one this will get them running around at the beginning of practice, and two it would get them to start moving their sticks more.  I feel that when they have a ball the just run with no awareness of the opposing team being able to get to their sticks.  This went ok, but they started getting a bit crazy so we ended it after a short while.
   Next i went into another new drill.  It was basically monkey in the middle.  It was four on one, inside a box.  I let the four players run around and pass the ball to keep away from the 'monkey'.  This quickly went bad, as they were paying no attention to the box they were to stay in and some kids were not really getting involved.
    It was at this point I knew we needed to get back on track.  I sent them off for a quick water break, and went back to more defined drills.  More run to this cone, do this, run to next and do that type of stuff. 
   In the end, I think we saved the practice, but learned a valuable lesson.  Keep things well defined, and don't leave 4, 5, and 6 year olds too much room for improvising.

Gonna try something different

   Last night I tried to change things up a bit.  Instead of starting practice with our standard line drills, and then moving into some of the usual drills, I moved right into some new drills.  We started with a semi circle half way between the cage and top of the box.  I passed or rolled balls out to them to get them working on receiving passes (and attacking ground balls) and then getting off a quick shot.  Also, since our goalie only practice in net once a week (side note: We have one goalie that plays half of each game, then middie the other half.  We rotate the other kids in net for the other half of each game), I wanted him to see some shots from off the top of the circle, since no matter how much I try to pound it into their heads that they don't have to stand on the crease to shoot, they always end up there.
   From there we moved into a give an go drill.  I had them start at mid-filed, pass to me on the run, head to the net for a pass back with a shot.  It went pretty well.  I started with rolling the ball to them to get them scooping on the run.  After a while, I started passing to them.  We had some mild success cacthing the ball which was a great confidence booster for everyone (me included).
   After a quick water break, which I throw in to keep them from getting too antsy waiting in line, I just had them start at the midfield line again, and pass to a teammate in the slot, that player would turn and shoot on the run.  The player who passed, would follow his pass to the slot, and get ready for pass.  Good, easy drill, that kept them moving, and flowed pretty well. 
   We finished up with 1 on 1 ground balls with ground ball winner getting to shoot, and other player playing defense.  Then 2 on 2 ground balls, and actually had some good communication and movement to open space without the ball.
   All in all it was a very good practice, everyone had fun, and I thought they had some good skill work. 
(FYI, if anyone every wants a copy of drills, just let me know and I will send them your way).

Wow, its been a while.

   So I guess the posting everyday thing has kinda been tossed out the window.  I guess I'll have to try and find more time in the day. 
   The weather has turned nicer, and things have really found a groove out on the field.  The kids are improving more and more every practice, and we are really finding a groove.  They are grasping the concepts, and are able to run more complicated drills.  Its really fun to see their hard work and enthusiasm paying off.
    After a rough streak of games against more experienced competition, he finally had a game with an evenly matched team.  It was nice to see the kids be able to do some of the things they have learned in a game, rather than chasing down older, faster kids all day.  Only a handful of weeks left in the lax season, and I am hoping to see a well oiled machine by the end :-).

Hard Work

Some practices the kids are so into it.  Other times, not so much.  I will tell you though, when they are ready to go, they are ready to go.  We only practiced once this week, but they worked hard.  Running hard, passing,  but most of all listening and following directions.  We did some new drills, with lots of cones for them to move through, and they came through like champs.  Hopefully they can keep this up, as we move towards doping some more team oriented practices.

Decisions, Decisions

   I find that one of the hardest things to do when coaching is trying to decide when to cancel practices because of weather.  I look at the hourly weather reports all day to see if the rain will hold out or stop long enough to squeeze in a practice.  I know with older kids, you can practice in the rain, but with Pre-K - 1st graders, I feel like they are just too young to be out there in the rain.  Especially when it has been so cold.
    This past week has been rough. It has been cold, and raining almost every day.  I waver on if I should cancel, and when.  I don't want to cancel too early, but I want to give the parents enough notice before hand.  I canceled 2 out of our last 3 practices.  The first was the right decision, as it started to down pour the entire we would have been on the field. The second was questionable, as it stopped raining.   But the field was really wet, and as I said it was cold!  With our first game coming up I was torn between getting in the extra practice time, and making sure these kids don't get sick.  Oh well, better to be safe then sorry.  Let's hope the watrm dry weather finally arrives and stays starting today.

Sometimes I'm Amazed

You go through weeks of practice, and sometimes you're unsure if these kids, being so young and little, are really picking anything up.  Then they just amaze you.  With our first game only a week away, we scrimmage with the other team form our organization.  22 kids, aged 4 to 6, with only about 5 having any experience playing lacrosse.  We had to set up on an unlined field, using cones and imaginary lines.  These kids were amazing.  Following directions, and playing hard for the whole scrimmage.  If they put in this kind of effort every week, it is going to be one great, fun season.  I can't wait.  It just goes to show, that if you, as a coach, keep them interested and working on the basics at practice, they will pick this stuff up, and amaze you.

Keep'em Moving

Right now I am coaching pre-k thru 1st grade boys lacrosse.  I have found with kids this young iot is extremely important to keep things moving as much as possible during practices.  The same could be said for older kids as well.  If they are stuck waiting in line or doing the same drill for too long, they will lose interest quickly.  Once they start losing interest, trouble isn't too far behind. 

I find the best way to keep things interesting is to break up the team into smaller groups.  Figure out ahead of time what skills you want to work on for the day, and have each group doing a different drill.  Have them rotate about every 15 minutes.  Running practice as if you are doing circuit training keeps them interested because they are doing something new every few minutes.  They also focus on each drill more because they are not doing it for too long, and they know it.  

Welcome!

   Hello, and welcome to Coaching 4 Kids.  This being the first post, I guess I should give you a little info about myself and the thoughts behind starting this blog.  I have been a coach in a variety of sports for the past 15 years.  I have been coaching children from age 3 to 15.  I feel like I have done it all when it comes to being a youth sports coach.  Ice hockey, football, lacrosse, Pre-K kids through HS Varsity.  I have enjoyed almost every minute of it.
   I decide to start this blog to share my experiences, and give insight to others that are coaching kids.  Whether you're a parent that decided to volunteer, or someone who does not have a child participating, and want to stay connected to a sport you love.  I hope you find this blog informative and entertaining.  Feel free to comment and share you experiences as well.  I will try to update on a daily basis so come back often.