Introduction

More and more, coaches are realizing that having a character development component present within their football program is important to developing players both on and off the field. The game of football is a tremendous platform for teaching the “game of life.” In my 30 years of coaching, I have always understood the importance for developing character, but I wasn’t always the best at implementation. The challenge was always when I would be able to squeeze in character development around the other demands of preparing a team and running a program. For that reason, character development for us was a “grab bag” approach with a quote here and a story there. 

Although I worked hard to teach the core values of honor, courage, commitment and loyalty, I wasn’t as impactful as I could have been because I lacked a systematic approach to making character development an established part of our program. As Coach Urban Meyer is quoted as saying, “average leaders have a quote, good leaders have a plan and great leaders have a system.” I wholeheartedly agree.  

The goal of this article is to outline the process we use in establishing and implementing our character development system and share with you how this has impacted our program. I am sure many of you have similar and perhaps superior systems in place, but it is my hope that I can share at least one idea with you worth including in your program. 

Element 1:  Establish Your Culture

The first step toward implementing character development into your program begins with establishing the culture of your program. Culture is nothing more than a program’s core beliefs, values, traditions, identity and ways of behaving. I am not here to tell anyone what type of culture to establish but instead to encourage coaches to figure out the “purpose” of your program and what you believe in. In short, your culture is “who you are” and “what you do”.  Without an established culture, it will be difficult to communicate and teach character. In many ways, culture and character are one and the same. 

We base our culture on a Code of Excellence. We believe in the relentless pursuit of excellence in the areas of attitude, effort, discipline, fundamentals and team unity. We believe that we have complete control over these five pillars and feel like, if we are excellent in these five areas, winning will take care of itself. We have also built our program upon the four core values of honor, courage, commitment and loyalty. We pride ourselves on being “blue collar” and in being a close-knit brotherhood. 

Element 2: Establish Clear Expectations

It is hard to have an effective character development program if you don’t clearly communicate policies and expectations. This is an obvious point, but an important one nonetheless. Everyone, including players, parents, football staff, boosters, administrators and support staff must have a clear idea of the vision, mission, policies and expectations of the program. 

Introduction: Defining the 21-Hour High School Football Program

The game of football is changing—and so is the rest of the world.

Pick up a newspaper—or check Facebook—and you’ll see all the latest reports about how participation in football is in decline. Outsiders cite concussions and injuries as the main driver of this trend, while coaches point to sport specialization as the real cause. As football researchers, we set out to better understand the real “why” behind the decline—and bring solutions back to the industry that could grow the game.

That was 18 months ago—and what we actually found during our research was far greater than what we had hoped to discover.

Just like any problem in football, there are thousands of coaches who face the same issue. And within those thousands of coaches, there are true innovators who see these problems as opportunities—opportunities to absolutely crush the ‘roadblock’ and build something bigger and better.

Yes—we found solutions to these problems. Real solutions that can grow the game of football. That was not surprising being we have a network of over 60,000 football coaches—most of which are at the high school level.

The truly exciting development we discovered through our research was a small group of coaches who are re-building their programs to achieve higher levels of success in an ever-changing culture, society and world—and, here’s the fun part, they’re winning more games!

In this book, you’ll learn how these programs are growing participation numbers, building strong partnerships with administrations, parents, the community—and inning more games!

How are they doing it?

Simple. It’s a new shift in thinking. These coaches are spending more time developing their programs to win in the 21 hours before and after practice. Don’t get us wrong—practice is a very critical part of building a successful program, but these high school coaches have found to truly reach the peak levels of success, you have to win in the hallways, administration offices, parents’ living rooms, and down on main street.

Is it easy? No, but neither is winning.

It doesn’t matter how well your program is functioning right now. It doesn’t matter if you’re barely holding on or you’ve just won consecutive state championships—use the ideas in this book to re-build your program into one that can face all the headwinds that our ever-changing world will throw at it—and, here’s the fun part, win more games!

Here is what you are going to find in this exclusive Special Report. (Note: Links for each case are provided at the end of this page.)

Case 1: Creating a Culture of Participation Growth

• Chapter 1: “Having an Anticipatory, Not Reactionary Mindset”
• Chapter 2: Retaining Freshmen Football Players
• Chapter 3: Combating Sports Specialization
• Chapter 4: Winning Over the Moms
• Chapter 5: Team Building: Developing the “Family Dynamic” of a Football Program

Case 2: The Movement to Make the Game Safer

• Chapter 1: The Reality Behind the Perceived Concussion Problem in High School Football
• Chapter 2: Educating Parents on Current Safety Advancements
• Chapter 3: New Practice Methodologies That Are Less Taxing on Players
• Chapter 4: Products That Promote Safety

Case 3: Developing Staff & Community Buy-In

• Chapter 1: Protocols of Staff Development
• Chapter 2: Protocols for Coaches That Work Out of District
• Chapter 3: Community Outreach
• Chapter 4: Reflections on Football in the Community

Case 4: Who Are You? The First Step to Building a Program

Case 5: Build Accountability by “Vesting” Players

Case 6: 3-Step Plan to Develop an “Uncommon” Program Identity

Chapter 1: Stilmulating Participation and Program Growth

Chapter 1: Protocols of Staff Development

Culture starts at the top. It’s instituted by the head coach, then trickles down to the players. But the key liaison between the players and the head coach are the assistant coaches. They are the ones that need to carry the philosophy forward. If they are all in-line, the chances of success improve. If they are providing mixed messages, the program can falter, and falter quickly. We all know this as coaches. But as a head coach, how do you get them in line with your beliefs? How do you get them to “buy in” to what you’re selling? In the ever-transient high school coaching world, many times assistant coaches are leaving to take administrative jobs, spend more time with their family or decide to part ways with the sport altogether.

So, we decided to research how coaches retain their staff after they build it and asked the tough questions like, is it even important to retain the staff? One thing we did find is that 76 percent of coaches that won at least 50 percent of their games the last three seasons said they’ve had zero or one coach leave the program each year.

We wanted to research how these successful coaches were retaining their staff year after year. Because let’s face it, familiarity does breed success. Once players get to know the staff, and those faces don’t change, a culture of comfort and trust will ensue. “Many coaches, one message” is what we call it. What we found that two components were key in keeping coaches: involvement and accountability.

Involvement in aspects of the program, aside from just the physical domain and accountability to affirm that there is a constant give and take between the staff and players. In order to validate our research, we asked one question to these coaches:

How, specifically, have you given your assistant coaches accountability (either on or off the field) in the development of your program?

Their responses are below:

Tom Wilson, Head Football Coach, Dowling Catholic High School (IA):

“My coaches have a say in many of the things we do. To list a few:

• “Position groups
• Social media promotion
• Involved in setting the culture and teachings of our program.
• Senior book read
• Newsletter
• Share weight room responsibility
• Share speed work responsibility”

Mike O’Donnell, Head Football Coach, Archbishop Stepinac High School (NY):

“Our assistant coaches are very involved in every aspect of program. We use them in game planning and in scouting. We use a no huddle offense so numerous coaches are involved in getting signals in and are not just standing around on sidelines. We have an offensive coordinator and defensive coordinator who I trust to call the games. We have another coach who is fully in charge of special teams. By setting up this system, our kids really get coached and are ready to move on to college level.

Our practice plan is one that has a 5-minute clock on each session. It keeps the kids attention. It forces coaches to be organized when going onto field.”

Rodney Saulsberry, Head Football Coach, Whitehaven High School (TN):

“75% of my staff are alumni of the program, so they have a vested interest in our development of young men. Also, I believe in coaching my coaches and giving them responsibilities and freedom to lead their position groups and units on offense, defense and special teams.”

Denny Diduch, Head Football Coach, Forreston High School (IL):

“My coaches all have position responsibilities that they are responsible for devising the drills to master technique at their positions. All coaches have access to Sunday prep meetings where they can voice concerns, ideas, etc. We open every game with a 12-play script that influences how we run practice all week. After week three, the assistant coaches come up with the script. All coaches are given specific roles and assignments that they are in charge of and can develop their own strategies to improve. On game nights, coaches are given a specific position to watch on both sides of the ball. They are then to report what they see to the OC/DC. Coaches are encouraged to continue presenting new ideas and strategies no matter how many times they get shot down.”

Coach/Player Mentor Programs:

While some assistant coaches responsibilities are relegated to on-field roles, other programs implement off-field mentorship models to develop the player/coach relationship. While this is not uncommon for college programs, where coaches are full time employees, organizing this at the high school level takes some coordination and follow through. For Ken Leonard, the Head Football Coach at Sacred Heart Griffin High School (IL) it became a necessity to implement these programs. He designed it two years ago, where each coach is assigned to 5-6 athletes. They will meet with each of them for only five minutes per week to discuss anything that is happening in their lives. “We are a private catholic school,” Coach Leonard told us. “We mentor and make players as great husbands and people. A coach has more influence in one year than anyone else has in his or her whole lives. Parents send their kids here for a purpose and it’s because of football. Our things carry over from the field. We needed to do more than just character development.”

The way the

Introduction:

Eight years ago I had the privilege to receive my first opportunity to be a Head Football Coach at Garden City High School (KS). Garden City, KS sits in the Southwest corner of Kansas, 70 miles from the Colorado border and 75 miles from the Oklahoma border. We participate in the largest classification in Kansas (6A). We are one of 32 teams in our classification and 30 of them are at least 200 miles away from us. The majority of the teams in our classification are in or around the Wichita and Kansas City areas. I had spent the previous 15 years coaching in the Kansas Junior College system as an assistant. This coaching experience provided opportunities to visit and watch from afar how successful Kansas high school coaches ran and developed their programs.

During the decade of the 1990’s were the best years that Garden City High School had ever had, winning 70% of their games and the State Championship in 1999. Then with the departure of the coach and an ever-changing world, Garden City went through many changes within our community. The next decade would see a shift in the economy and change of demographics. During the 2016 school year at Garden City High School, there were 22 languages spoken by students from 25 different nations. Over 30% of our students are English Language Learners and 65% of our population is considered economically disadvantaged. Our enrollment during the 2016 school year was 68% Hispanic, 23% white and 9% other. Eight years ago, when I got the job I was told that it was going to be difficult to compete in such a large classification with a small pool of athletes to choose from compared to many other schools our size. Our isolation in far western Kansas was also going to be a challenge as school funding in our state has become a major factor and fewer and fewer schools have the funds to travel to fill our schedule. I heard a lot of reasons why I shouldn’t be successful but no one was looking for solutions to lessen the impact of these factors. 

The first action step was to sit down with my assistant coaches and have them tell me all the reasons in their opinion why we weren’t being successful and what the other schools had that we didn’t. I took notes and typed up every single reason and began looking for ways to compensate for them. As many of the great athletes and coaches have said, it was time to turn negatives into positives. Since that spring in 2010 we have won 65% of our games, won three conference championships and made it to the 6A state semi-finals where we lost to the eventual champions. This past season we completed the first undefeated regular season in 25 years. Below are four areas that are not uncommon practices to turn a program around, but maybe unorthodox methods to achieve them.

Family Culture:

First and foremost, all good coaches know that they can’t do it alone and hiring a quality staff is critical. I wanted to find guys who wanted to be here because not everyone wants to live and raise a family in Garden City, Kansas. Secondly, I wanted guys I can trust and share the same passion and vision as I did. I was very fortunate that when I took the job here there were two assistants that I had coached in junior college already on staff, which made for an easier transition because they knew me and my personality. Going into this fall, I now will have 7 of my 11 assistants at the high school level that are guys that I have coached at some point in my career. I think it is critical with today’s athletes to present a coach to them that they can relate to. Fortunately for me, many of the former players that I have hired are former college athletes as well. Young coaches with energy and the experience of being in their shoes provide a great platform for high school athletes.

The second most important part of creating a family culture with so many kids with different backgrounds is team building activities. With so many of my kids that don’t get many family vacations or opportunities to see the bright lights of big cities, we try to take advantage of every opportunity we can to provide that experience. For example, one summer while we attended a team camp in Oklahoma, we took a tour of the athletic facilities at Oklahoma State University on the way home, even though it was slightly out of the way. Most of my kids have never been on a Division I school campus, nor will ever get much of an opportunity to play at that level. Getting to walk thru the locker room, onto the field and thru meeting rooms allow them to dream a little bit which creates possibilities in their minds. We have also attended Major League baseball games, gone to water parks and even played paintball on our camp trips. These create great opportunities for players and coaches to get to know one another on a more personable level, rather than just the traditional coach-player relationship on the football field. We take the time to discuss issues about how and why it is important to becoming leaders on our team, in our school, and in our community. The relationships our coaches have with our players feed into all areas of their lives on and off the field. They provide the leadership and discipline in a young athlete’s life to help set them up for success in the future.