To this point in my coachlng life, my focus has been teaching at the high school or college level. However, as my young son (throwing in the picture above) begins to play organized football, there is an obvious shift in my focus. We live in an area that not only provides year round 7 on 7 leagues for his age group, but he is also in private school, where the league forms teams starting in the 5th grade. If one could take advantage of this, think of the teaching one could accomplish BEFORE high school!
I set out to simply work on throwing and catching with him and his team, and spent much of practice playing catch. I wanted it to be a fun experience, because, in my opinion, the focus at this age level is to have them wanting to come back next year. The love of the game is something that cannot be taught or engrained. So when my boy came to me and asked me to "teach him football" after the summer season -- I was overjoyed. He is very bright, but the offense I had always run is, admittedly a little too much.
So, I have spent the last several weeks working on a way to "re-code" the offense -- finding a way to have all the applicable concepts, yet simply enough in verbiage and presentation that grade school-aged players can learn (and execute) the basics and have the offense "grow as they grow". I've had conversations with several coaching buddies who have gone through teaching their own sons, and have my own 8-year old to bounce ideas off of.
I feel very good about what we have come up with, so much so that last week, my son pointed out that the team we were watching on TV was in a "2 by 2" formation. Using colors, mascots, cities, and numbers, the offense has been converted to make sense to a young mind, yet still be able to expand to the point where I feel confident his knowledge base when he leaves middle school will provide him an advantage.
I set out to simply work on throwing and catching with him and his team, and spent much of practice playing catch. I wanted it to be a fun experience, because, in my opinion, the focus at this age level is to have them wanting to come back next year. The love of the game is something that cannot be taught or engrained. So when my boy came to me and asked me to "teach him football" after the summer season -- I was overjoyed. He is very bright, but the offense I had always run is, admittedly a little too much.
So, I have spent the last several weeks working on a way to "re-code" the offense -- finding a way to have all the applicable concepts, yet simply enough in verbiage and presentation that grade school-aged players can learn (and execute) the basics and have the offense "grow as they grow". I've had conversations with several coaching buddies who have gone through teaching their own sons, and have my own 8-year old to bounce ideas off of.
I feel very good about what we have come up with, so much so that last week, my son pointed out that the team we were watching on TV was in a "2 by 2" formation. Using colors, mascots, cities, and numbers, the offense has been converted to make sense to a young mind, yet still be able to expand to the point where I feel confident his knowledge base when he leaves middle school will provide him an advantage.
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