Coaching Staff and Parents

Once you have your youth football coaching staff, including the serious parents who commit as assistant coach, you still will need a lot of help to make the season go as smooth as possible.

The team mom can be the most helpful of all parents. Make sure you have the full list of duties for the team mom. I find it best to let them know up front what they are volunteering for. The usual duties always include the following;

• Typing and Passing out a roster list with all the players names, numbers, parents names and contact info
• Emergency phone numbers lists
• Organizing the homecoming of Rally night which may include assigning things for people to bring.
• Help passing out uniforms
• Collection of money and delivery of uniforms to local shirt shops to get the names printed on the back
• Email updates to the parents
• Make and distribute an assignment list for game day duties
• Make and distribute a snack list. I’m funny about this and have pretty much gotten away from it. A lot of teams do a halftime and end of the game snack. I have eliminated both since I believe they are a distraction. An after game beverage like Gatorade is fine.
• Plan and book the year end banquet. This will include collecting the money from each parent.

These are the main things I will have the Team Mom take care of.

I usually get some one to volunteer very early to be Team Mom. I think the earlier in your youth football year the better. You will find that most of the time the same mom volunteers year after year.

Just because a parent is not a coach does not mean you can not use their help during the youth football season.

On game day alone you will need to have the following:

• Pictures of the game (I have come to like still pictures better than video in recent years.)
• Video of the game. I may like pictures better but video is still a must.
• In game scouting and tendency reports
• Statistics during the game.

If the youth football Game is at Home

• Security of the fields
• Concessions throughout the day
• Set up and break down of the fields
• Field Manager to answer questions
• 3 People to work the chains

If you have a parent who like to come to the youth football practices and wants to help you can have them help with the following

• Throwing passes to the receivers
• Long snapping with the punter
• Direct snap monitoring before the practice
• Kicking extra points with the kicker before and after practices.
• Help set up and take down pads and cones for drills

Always welcome help with open arms. Just make sure that you do not put any person in a position that may make them feel uncomfortable.

Likewise you need to make sure you do not let any parent overstep the boundaries you have set. Each job you want help for should be spelled out completely ahead of time to avoid any potential future problems.

My youth football coaching success comes from the coaches that have helped me over the years. I would never have lasted as long if it was not for a few of my good buddies. I can not over state how important it is to have a staff of coaches and not just Dads. Please don’t get me wrong. You will want to have as much help as possible and there are some Dads that can bring some value. I believe you are better off with long term relationships where all coaches are pretty much on the same page.

With long term coaches certain potential problems do not exist. The usual problems of playing time and player positions should never be a point of contention within the staff.

Please understand the point I’m making. It is great to have a coach with a kid on the team as long as the coach is not just looking for a one year gig. I have been coaching with some of the same coaches for 4 years (2 on flag football and 2 on tackle). These are great friends and coaches who I know I will continue to coach with for years to come. You can definitely use the one year Dad /coach but you need a group of long term coaches.

Another advantage of having long-term coaches is that all coaches are usually on the same page. In this helps, not needing to convince or teach your methodology to a parent who is probably only concerned about how much playing time his child will get or what position he will be playing.

You will want to have both permanent coaches and parents. Each will serve a valuable service to you during the upcoming youth football season. The parents can hold the clipboard, take game stats, work with the long snapper, hold the line markers during games, and handle snacks schedules.

I know it sounds terrible, but it in the off-season make sure you recruits studs. You want to try to get the best basketball, soccer, baseball and hockey players or whatever sport is in the area. One great way of finding these kids is to be involved in coaching other youth sports. You will know which of these kids are aggressive and fast. I have coached youth basketball longer than youth football and this has always been a gold mine for football.

The second way to recruit players is your current players. All kids want to have their friends on the same youth football team. Encourage your current team to spread the word.

You can check with your league to see if there are any boundary limits. If not you may want to check out some kids from the neighboring towns. This is especially effect if the neighboring city does not have a youth football program or plays in a different league.

Most of the parents are good people. Most of the parents will be good or neutral. The helpful parents you will want to embrace. There are always a handful of parents that will support your effort while coaching the youth football team.

You want to let them be of assistance in every way possible. These parents can also be your ears on the sidelines. If you are having a rough year please ask these parents for their input. You will want to know who is saying what on the sidelines. The good and neutral parents understand and appreciate the time you are volunteering to coach their child’s youth football.

It is quite OK to socialize with the parents, but I would suggest not getting too close. If they think, you are their “buddy” they might start looking for so “perks”.

I remember about 18 years ago getting way too close to a group of parents. It was even worse since we had the same group of players for both our youth football team for two years and our youth basketball team for three years. I will never forget being in a tight game and the one parent blurting aloud, “Hey Jim, How about throwing one of those deep passes to Eric”? In an instant, I knew I had become to close to these parents.

You must secure the returning players from last year's youth football team. Returning players are very important for your upcoming season. You know what you have with a returning player. If they are young or a second year playing returning you will see the biggest improvement in their skills and aggressiveness. You can usually have a fairly good outlook on the upcoming season based on the amount of returning players.

You also need to talk to the coach of the lower level youth football teams that will be feeding into your level. Ask the coach who the upcoming studs are as well as the immediate lower-level. It is good to have some insight on their strengths and weaknesses.

Most of the youth football teams I have coached that were Championship caliber all had many returning players. We have had years where we have many skill players come from the lower level teams. You can expect a great year when you are taking skill athletes who were running backs on previous teams and they are now lineman for you.

I believe that experience is the second most important quality you want in the youth athlete. The most important quality is speed. I’m talking about Greased lighting God Given natural speed.

I always spend a good portion of the youth football off-season reviewing the past year. You want to continue to do what works and get rid of what didn’t. If this is the first year running a different offense or defense this is especially true. I remember the first year we ran the Single Wing offense with 8-9 year olds we had such an occurrence. Our Running Back position decided to cut every power play to the outside. The power play is an inside run where you must follow the lead backs to the hole. By trying to cut the run to the outside he was abandoning the blockers and was getting tackled for small or no gains. I learned that when coaching the young kids you really need to make sure they understand the importance of the play being run the way it is shown in practice.

It is best to wait a few months after the youth football season ends to reflect on what actually happened on the previous year. Is important to make sure you can differentiate from what really happened versus what you thought happened. There has been many time when I felt we were doing one thing well by the end of the year and I was dead wrong. By waiting a few months you can clear your mind and review the past year looking for anything that will help you be a better coach in the upcoming year.

Every year you coach a different age or skill level you'll find things that have worked from previous years at previous levels, and things that do not. You must be honest with yourself and realize that not all things work best at all levels. I always keep an entire log with detailed notes of the entire year. It is a wonderful reference for future years. I start each year by grabbing the binder from a previous year that most closely resembles the age and talent level I will be coaching this year.

Beware that each New Year will bring you new talent. What may have succeeded last year may not be appropriate for the upcoming youth football season. Make sure you keep an open mind at the beginning of the season before you make any final decisions.