New Coach Orientation

Welcome coaches grab a few beers and we will get down to business.

Any questions, before we get into this? No. Okay, I have one for you. What do you think the goal of coaching little league football is?

I’m hearing. To prepare kids for high school so they have the proper skills to excel at football. Okay. Yeah, that’s a plus. Anyone else?

Teach the kids self-confidence and help them become better people?

Who the hell do you guys think we are the freaking boy scouts? Do you think it is Urban Meyer or Nick Saban’s job to teach the leaders of tomorrow? Are they even supposed to prepare the kids for the NFL?  Hell No. Their job is to WIN. Our job is to win. No one likes to lose, and it is not like we are getting paid so win at any cost necessary gentlemen.

Look I have been coaching kids a while now. I’m not going to lie we have sent kids to high school who have played safety or cornerback all their little league careers without knowing what a coverage shell is.

Hell Jimmy, over there he prefers his lineman to set in a froggy stance.

‘nd Billy over there rushes all 11 players every damn snap of the ball.

Guys winning is easy. Kids are idiots. All you have to do is trick a nine-year-old. Do you know how easy it is to trick them? Half the team thinks I can pull a quarter out of their ear at will, while the other half think I can slide my thumb off. You only have to run three plays.

Sweep Right
Sweep Right
Counter Left
Touchdown!

Ok, let’s take a quick shot break before we talk about how to select a team.

/Takes shot

Ok, so unless you are in good with the league commissioner you will not have the top team. Instead you and the rest of the fathers of players will have to duke it out in fantasy football like draft. Chosen on how well you kiss my ring.

Rules of the game dictate that every kid must have a starting position on your football team. For this purpose, we try to keep teams as small as possible, and just like how Jared from Subway soon to be prison likes it 14-16 kids per team is optimal and 18 or above is too much. This rule is why we love to all run five-man fronts on defense it allows you to hide your worst players on the interior defensive line or thins the herd. More on that later.

After two weeks of player evaluations its time to select your team. Keep in mind we are not just drafting the kids we are drafting their parents. You need 1-2 fast kids and a strong offensive line. This is little league, not the big leagues you can always outscore your opponent remember these kids are idiots and can be tricked easily so brush up on your trick plays.

So you start out drafting the top by picking who your running backs will be. These will be the fastest kids on your team most of the time they will never leave the field. After that, you start drafting the parents. Which kids dad has the coolest toys and whose mother looks best in yoga pants. You find that mom, you ask her to be the “Team Mom” she will see it as an honor and always show up to practices and games with awesome snacks for the kids and cold beer for the coaches. If she’s a recently divorced mom, even better you instantly get her number and always have an excuse to text her. Even if she is not, you play the odds and this time next year she will be if you know what I mean.

Next up you want to start drafting the weakest kids. I know I know, we don’t cut kids… we just make the weak ones quit. (laughter breaks out amongst the crowd of vet coaches). We will get to that when we discuss the practice.

Remember the teams are spread out between a mixture of weight and age. Say you are coaching in the 75-pound division. The kids should be around 9-10 years old here. Weigh in only occurs once so what you want is your team to average about 80-90lbs and have them cut weight to 75lbs like they are an MMA/wrestler. So talk to the parents and make sure they feed their kids only chicken and veggies. When making them sweat it out it is key to having a nice dry towel to wipe away the sweat, so the water doesn’t get reabsorbed. If the parents complain or god forbid they have their doctor consult on the weight cutting just pressure them into it by saying “Do you really want your kid to play with a bunch of strangers or with his friends?” Gets them every time. Besides they are young and forcing a 10-12-year-old to drop 10+ pounds is good character building.

Ok, Now you have your team. You have your stud players, the alright kids but the great parents, you even have your hot team mom who looks great in a pair of yoga pants. Let’s discuss the practice. Before school starts for the year we can practice every day. Once school begins we only get 3 activities a week plus a game. What I like to do is one offense day, one defense day, and a half practice on Friday because the coach needs to get his drink on and it is not like we are going to punt.

So for the first week or so we teach the basic plays run right and counter and so forth. Then we work on tackling and blocking. If you drafted a kid, who’s not well coordinated this is the fun part. Take your top 3 players the ones who made weigh in and already are about 92 lbs and line them up against your weak links on every drill.

Say it’s “King of the Hill.” What you do is put Stud 1 against weak link 1 and have them clash. Stud one will plow right over them. Congratulate Stud 1 on his technique then yell at the weak kid to get his head out of his ass and try it again this time against Stud 2. WHAM. Pull the kid aside let Stud 1 and Stud 2 go at it while pointing out to the kid what you think he is doing wrong (besides the fact he is most likely nearly 20lbs lighter than those two). Now put the weak kid back in there and yell at him. WHAM… do it again (after all you are teaching him). Tell him you can do this all night and you will do this until he does it right. Do this a couple of days in a row and that kid will be begging you to quit and you don’t have to feel bad about asking him to quit. WIN/WIN. We are all about winning here.

Now if this kid shows up after this, we work in full contact hitting drills twice a practice. First is you line up the kids take the first four kids not the best ones and spread them out down the field at 5-yard increments. Now give the weak kid the ball and tell him to run down the field. This is an open field tackling drill the runner runs down gets tackled pops up and repeat when he gets to the end he takes that kids spot and every kid moves up on. So the weak kid will usually be crying by the 3rd hit. Now he is in the last position You get your studs to run down the line. Don’t forget to yell at the weak kid every time he gets run over by the bigger kid. If he is still around then it comes to talking with the kids parents.

You want to talk to the mom if she’s around. Dad more than likely doesn’t want his kid to be a quitter while mom doesn’t want to get him hurt. Now here is the script:

“Hello Mrs [insert name]. I think it is time to have a discussion about [insert kid’s name]. He is a great kid a heart of a champion. Hell, I wish more kids had his heart it’s just not something you can coach. Anyways, he is having some trouble on the field, and I can see it getting to him. This is supposed to be a fun game and frankly his size God bless I just don’t think he is having fun. Trust me I hate to lose a player. However, the kids should always come first. I would much rather lose a player than let the sport lose a fan because he didn’t have a fun time. I honestly think he needs another year to grow into himself more.”

Boom! Mom thinks you’re a compassionate guy with her kids interest at heart, and you don’t have to hide a crappy player on the defensive line.

Well, that’s all the time we have for tonight. Hope you all learned a lot next time we meet up we will be having our player orientation. Remember if you do end up sleeping with the team mom she’s the slut of the area and you… you get a drink from me!

New Parent Orientation
New Coach Orientation
Player Orientation
Team Parents Orientation