The highs and lows of coaching youth football

The Highs: teaching kids to love a game (any game not just football), running plays with success that you practice over and over, celebrating when you win, teaching when you lose, watching kids learn to block and tackle, pre-playoff parties, winning close games, losing close games, post season parties....but the biggest high is when all of your kids show up the next season to play again because you, the other coaches and parents were responsible for those kids having a great experience.

The Lows: playing a team from Prior Lake that yelled at their kids any time they gave up +5 yards, yelled at the refs for every penalty under the sun "holding" "pass interference" "movement" "horse collar" "block in the back"...but the low hit rock bottom when they tried the "wrong ball" trick play (snuffed) and the wide receiver from the sideline trick play (you know, where the kid lines up 1" from the sidelines next to his whole team and then runs a fly pattern...nice one)... by the end of the game I felt sorry for them.

Commentary:  You only have 60-90 minutes of practice, spend it teaching kids how to block and tackle, teach them how to execute 10 simple plays (dive, off tackle, sweep, counter, reverse, and some forms of misdirection)....spending it on the Wrong Ball play so you can go up to your buddy at the water cooler and brag how you fleeced a bunch of 10 year olds on an illegal play is about as cool as a fanny pack or even worse socks and sandals!

Editor's Note: 0-0 tie (had 2 TD's called back...not one word out of my mouth except "who was it on").

Dear Joel

An open letter to University of Minnesota Athletics Director, Joel Maturi.

Dear Joel:

No offense to J Robinson...but the only thing we are good at is Wrestling....and I hate Wrestling. For that matter, I hate Indoor Track, Cross Country, Women's Soccer, Gymnastics, and Swimming (and anything else that is not televised and costs the AD money). You know why they aren't televised? Because nobody cares.

It's time to make some hard decisions within the AD. Here a few tough decisions that need to be made:

1. New Football Coach - start the planning now
2. New Football Coach - start the planning now (in case you missed #1 I put it as number 2)
3. New Hockey Coach - see above
4. Remove 8 sports from the payroll (Texas has 18, we have 25...why? Because they are good at those sports).
5. Focus on Football - in case you missed it, Nebraska is joining the B10 (and we play them every year) - they have an 85K seat FB stadium that is filled every Saturday. Have you been to Nebraska before? If you haven't, you haven't missed much, except on Saturday's in the Fall. Read between the lines Joel, FB pays the bills.

When you kill the other sports...just plug your ears. The whining will eventually stop from all 117 who care about the Men's Tennis and the Spirit Squads.

I'm sorry but, the "Hey, we are in the B10, this is awesome we don't have to lift a finger because the bowls and the BTN pay for everything!" attitude just sucks.

We need proven coaches, with proven winning experience here ASAP (Harbaugh/Golden = winner, Blais, or any Serratorre = winner)...and if you have to make a difficult decision or two to get that done, then get to it.

Or we'll find someone who can.

Sincerely,

Tony Zosel