Bill Snyder - Coaching a Successful Program - Full Video

[Music] you well this is this is a nice size group here ya know we can make this very informal quite obviously and I think that's really what we'll what we'll do so you know you interrupt me at any time that you'd like to and if you've got something you want to ask about I can go in any direction you'd like to go and I'll intend to do that as as best I possibly can I mean maybe share some information here our head football coaches and then the others would be assistants is that right okay they might and I and I'm gonna labor under the assumption that most of you involved in high school coaching high school junior junior Cod I've been coaching for thirty five years just to give you a little background on some of the things that I'd like to share with you in that 35 years the first well ten of the first twelve years were involved as a high school coach I coached as as a freshman coach I coached as a junior varsity coach an assistant varsity coach a head varsity coach I was two years as a graduate assistant to different institutions I spent two years as a small college assistant at an NAIA school in Texas and I've been 21 years in Division one a football 13 of those as an assistant coach and eight of them the past eight seasons at Kansas State as a head coach so I've had a variety of different experiences and it's taken me virtually not everywhere but a large expanse of this country I did most of my high school coaching in Southern California so I was in heavy populated areas I spent a good deal of time in Texas so I was around you know two different states where it was football was extremely popular in both states and now you know I having spent the last eight years actually the last 18 years in the Midwest which is a little bit different environment in regards to football itself very interesting when I was in Southern California and as I said I was out there for a total of 10 years 9 of a coaching high school football they used to have clinics large clinics you know with five six seven eight nine hundred people in attendance virtually every weekend throughout the year you know weekend after weekend after weekend and and a lot of tremendous coaches both at the high school level and certainly at the college level professional ranks as well and there was great access to all those people and I learned an awful lot in fact you know whatever it is that I knew about the X's and O's of the game I learned going to clinics and I went every single weekend if there was it there were 52 clinics I went to all 52 of them and probably that's how many there were you're in and you're out and I certainly enjoyed that I learned a great deal and when I when I took all of that into into coaching it got me in a little bit of trouble basically because you know I think that I've put so much emphasis on X's and O's that I lost sight or maybe never gained sight for quite some time of what's really important in terms of coaching and and we can talk X's and O's if you like but what I would really like to share with your things that I think are really important and whether it happens to be high school coaching or college coaching at any particular level junior college coaching or junior high school coach and I think basically it's all the same what I found out is this it took me a while to do it and I had a varying degree of a lack of success in my attempt to try to search these things out what I really found out is that there are certain things that will never change now they will some of you're very young as I said I've been coaching for 35 years and there are things that were true 35 years ago that are still true today and to me those are the things that make the difference between being successful and not being successful in terms of coaching and maybe in how we live our lives what I found out was this that principles values organization people and attitudes didn't change and those were the foundation those were the things that were the foundation of developing a successful program and as I said X's and O's changed and I really did I learned a great deal from a lot of people and and they were excellent football coaches and I learned what I consider and still consider to be maybe some of the finest decks and o things that you could you could certainly come across but what I found out is everything runs in cycles you know and a lot of people doing today what a lot of people were doing 35 years ago and again it comes and goes but the but the other things really become important now before I really get into maybe some of the things that we've tried to do with our program that I have learned over the years let me share some things with you because I think as we said all of you are involved in high school football coach coaching I think this I think today that there is we're on the brink of some difficult times you know we've experienced some here in the past maybe five or six years I think it could get worse before it gets better and I think all of us need to get involved regardless of what level we coach at I think some of the things that are issues today in high school coaching and certainly it's true from at the college level as well and and you have to realize and I'm sure you do there are a lot of things that are have a trickle-down effect and and it may be a trickle up effect you know depending on how you approach it you know a lot of people ask me all the time well you know you know you coached nine years at and high schools you know how did you get to be a head coach in a Division one a school well I'm not sure exactly how all that took place but what I do know was this I'd go back and coach high school football in a heartbeat I can assure you that you know and I said that and I've shared that with virtually anybody that they will listen and many clinics that I do in a lot of other talks particularly with high school junior high school coaches and I would I'd go back in a heartbeat and everybody says well women's you know you can't make that kind of money you're making a lot of money doing what you're doing right now I don't live any differently I do not live any differently in 1960 the seven 1968-69 1971 I went to Southern California lived in Mission Viejo California I lived in a nicer area and it's nicer place as I live in right now see my days have not changed from then until now you say well you must leave with a very sheltered life that's not not at all the case my my life is wrapped up in football it's laughable wrapped up and what our business happens to be the things really haven't changed you know in my way of thinking and basically in what I do and how I conduct my life so it wouldn't bother me at all to go back to the high school level in fact you know some of the greatest times that I've had in terms of coaching and being around people were involved at the high school level but nevertheless let me let me touch them things here real quickly first of all NC 2a legislation I think and and let me let me preface this you know I'm gonna skip ahead of something else that's on here for just a moment here's something that I learned a long time ago and it is and it has helped me immensely because I was in I was in her seat you know probably every single one of you at one time or other in my career and when I first got into coaching I wanted to climb that ladder as rapidly as I could I knew where I was I knew where I wanted to be and I wanted to get there and I spent a heck of a lot of time trying to get there and that was time wasted and prevented me from being as good a football coach as I could be where I was and so I've always maybe in the past 20 years or so my feeling has always been be where I am be where I am and that's and I've stuck by that and that's meant a great deal to me and what I meant by that in my own way of thinking and how that affected me is that I had spent so much time I had one foot in and one foot out I was in the program that I was in to a certain degree but I had half of my thoughts were outside of that program trying to get someplace else and what I come to find out was I was not nearly as successful a football coach as good a football coach is competent a football coach is I needed to be wanted to be and could have been because too much of my efforts in my time were too voted to trying to be someplace else too much my thought was directed towards trying to be somewhere else not that I dislike where I was I just wanted to keep taking those steps and what I realized was that wasn't right for me I'm not telling you that may or may not be right for you I'm telling you that wasn't right for me and at a point in time in my career I realized I need to be where I am and that means that I'm gonna do the dead-level best that I can I'm not going to be focused on anything except what I'm coaching at that particular point in time I wanted to take great pride in whatever my responsibilities and the assignments were whether it happened to be coaching quarterbacks or coaching offense or coaching defense or being a head coach and running a program I wanted to do just exactly what it was that my responsibilities provided me an opportunity to do now that has helped me a great deal and it has allowed me than every opportunity to have you know people talk about plans you know you hear 5-year plans all the time right now we don't have a five-year plan didn't have one when I went there but we do say that we talk in terms of long-range and I think in order to address some of the problems that you have at the high school level you've got to be in it for the long haul you've got to think long-range whether you remain there or not be determined at some other time but to still have a long-range plan allows you and it has allowed me to be able to go into a program develop the program as well as it possibly be can be developed and if the opportunity presents itself that I need to move on then I certainly can do that but I have done as well as I could possibly do where it is that I've have been now in addressing NC to a legislation you know I don't know how you know how up-to-date you know you're kept in that regard but you know that there's some problems I certainly know that there are some problems I know one of them happens to be gender equity and I'm all in favor of gender equity you know I I believe I've got five children outside of the hundred and twenty that we coach on a regular basis three of them are daughters I want my daughters are as to have an opportunity I've got one of them right now that rides as a as a jumper horse rider and she's over in Colorado right now right in a at a show she's only 11 years old she's my youngest and there's gonna come a point in time where she's going to be at the high school level and I don't know exactly what sports she might be interested in but whatever it is I want to make sure that she has an opportunity I think we all probably feel that way the problem is who's going to pay for it you know is it going to come out of my pocket is going to come out of the taxpayers pocket is it going to come out of school districts pocket or is it not going to come out of anybody's pocket and you're not going to have that program so I what I look at is from a football standpoint because that one of the things that's extremely important to me outside of my family is I want to make sure that I'm doing everything that I can to take care of the football program that we have at Kansas State University well I also understand that Kansas state we're going through the same kind of things that you might at the high school that other colleges are and that is this gender equity thing so we're talking about we've got to take X amount of dollars and we've got to support this women's program now where it starts to get hurt and some of you may be involved in that respect is now all of a sudden you see a men's program starting to be pulled by the wayside you know now we're losing a men's gymnastics team now you're losing and then swimming team and men's subtract team a men's baseball team etc etc in order to have parity in regards to the number of dollars that's spent for women's athletics as well as men's athletics well I'm not against I'm not at all against women having great opportunities and I and I would fight for it and I think that the point that I want to make I think that's what's important for you to do is is to you've got to battle for your program but by the same token it's important to be able to support the other programs around you and in terms of women's athletics it's important to do that if it hasn't gotten to your high schools eventually it will it's a federal law it is a federal law and all of a sudden you know I can remember when it was put in and that was about 10 11 years ago and and no one paid a lot of attention to it at that time in over a period of years it wasn't paid a lot of attention to but all of a sudden there's a lot of ladies out there that feel like wait a minute we have been on the short side of this and it's time for us and they've got some spokespeople that are awfully good what they do and they stand up and they make some noise and maybe rightfully so the point is right or wrong whether we believe in it or not that we've got to find a way in order to battle for our program and part of it starts with I think making sure that in our own programs that we are able to communicate what's really important about what we do and I think you're I think you're Superintendent of Schools I think your principal I think your counselors your faculty members everybody involved in your school needs to understand why what you do is important to that school you know I've seen it happen at the high school level I've seen athletics cut back you know where do they where do they take the dollars when they have when they have a problem normally it comes out of athletics that's that's not any difference than it is at the college level at the college level we stand self-supporting they but when it in terms of self-supporting that means if we can't make the dollar we can't spend the dollar and now we have to spend more money on women's athletics that means even if we make the dollar we're still not going to be able to spend as much I think there's some things that we need to be able to do and as I said one of them is let everybody know that what you do really is important and believe me what you do is as important as anything that is being done at your school I can assure you that you teach things hopefully and I'm sure you do you teach things to young people that he will never learn in this library he'll never learn in the classroom down the hall you teach things that he's going to carry over with him for the rest of his life and they will be important to him in terms of what kind of success he has as a human being what kind of success he has in a chosen career field etc etc doesn't downplay the value of education but you're providing an education and a lot of people don't understand the value of the education that you provide you need to make sure that they understand that now when I say you have to fight for your program as well I think there's there's other things to be concerned about you know one is I don't know what itwhat has really taken place here I know when I was in Southern California that there was the soccer craze you know hit Southern California and I'm telling you it took a real hit on football and I love soccer my who was an all-american punter for us at Kansas State University was a soccer player I almost never got into football it was a sophomore or a junior in high school before he started playing football soccer was a great asset to him but he enjoyed the game and I wanted to do what he really enjoyed doing but I also see that it is real craze across the country in our community right now a soccer is is very big Manhattan Kansas not a big community but a lot of young people and soccer is real big too what I've always thought that has been important we did this when I was in Southern California and I think it helped us a great deal we held a skills clinic clinics athletic skills clinics for young kids in our community now these we're talking about from kindergarten up and we set them up in different sections so we can address the skills that each one of them brought to brought to the program now what we did and this wasn't necessarily football skills we had a separate camp and many of you probably run camps for people in your community youngsters in your community we brought young people in and tried to instruct and teach athletic skills so they could apply those to virtually anything and we did all the things that that I'm sure that you do at some point in time in your programs we taught young people out of how to change direction movement type skills change direction agility being able to play over bent knees be able or just being what we call football or athletic positions or whatever your terminology for that happens to be but we taught athletic type skills and then we addressed a lot of things in terms of just intrinsic values you know in terms of discipline and hard work responsibilities etc etc those types of things that all of you try to coach to your players but in doing so what we thought we could do is develop first of all an interest in people understanding that we were there for our community secondly we were in the process of trying to develop better athletes at a younger age so that they could do all those athletic and guild oriented things and it didn't deal with with blocking and tackling etc was just becoming better athletes and we had great attendance of those and most of the community got involved in it we let that carry over to you know have skills clinics in regards to positions that that young people played now when they're you know when they were sixth grade fifth grade etc in California might be a little different than it was here we had that junior all-american football so young guys were young kids were playing at a very very early age but we would bring them in I tell you what we did with quarterbacks very quickly now we would bring youngsters in and and try to outside of the skills clinic we would try to teach them the skills of of quarterback and as you would any position and from that we would try to determine out of this group of youngsters that we would have within our community who eventually would become perhaps players in our program at least they would be in our high school and hopefully if we've liked them and they liked us that we could have a coming together of sorts in which we could help develop young people at a very early age so we would take you know third fourth fifth sixth seventh graders that were not at our high school and try to develop their quarterback skills and these in these particular clinics that we had and then it would see it was a carryover and it was the ability for us to be able to sit down with the youngsters parents if we could identify four or five youngsters that we thought in time could develop because because of their skill as an athlete could develop in our program and play that extremely important position a quarterback that we could bring those youngsters in sit down get with their parents and sit down and say listen we'd like we think this young man who's in the sixth grade right now when he gets to the high school in the ninth grade we think he could develop into a tremendously talented young quarterback we would like to help develop his skills and if you would if you would concur with that as a parent then we will devise a program by which we can do this now there's restrictions on what high school coaches can do with young people and we didn't want to violate those rules but we wanted the parents to be involved and so normally parents were gonna say well that sounds great from you know here's but he already recognizing the talents of my six sixth grader and so fine what can we do to help we would put together a program and then we would ask the the parents and at that time you know videotape and all was kind of just now coming on the on the forefront and we would ask the parents to go out and videotape their youngers and their workouts and then on a regular basis we would evaluate the the throwing basically throwing mechanics of a youngster and we would get the parent to work with us back and forth we could evaluate and they could go back and instruct the skills now all those types of things if someone is is into a high school with the idea that you're you're gone in a year you're gone in two years you're probably not going to do those kind of things those kind of things did wonders for our program they endeared us to the community they helped us develop young people have an interest in our program and they helped us develop young people at certain positions that really could come into our program and be relatively skilled when when I left that particular program I was there for four years at that particular high school when I left that putting when he started this when I left that program all of that hadn't taken effect yet but over a period of time it did and and in the ideal thing is over a period of time rather than the quick fix and is that being at Kansas State University I mean that wasn't a quick fix thing I can assure you that I'll address that in a minute educating players and well let me address I'm here too I'm spending too much time on this but in terms of expenses you know it's you you go through a certain degree of scrutiny scrutiny in your program we certainly do at Kansas State University every place I have been has been exactly the same way it costs money to run a program and people are going to criticize you first and foremost because of the amount of money that you spend and why is it you know you think back and think about all the instructors the teachers that are in your building that are in your school and their programs don't have the kind of money that your program does even at the high school level that's true at our level and I think what really you run a risk right here you if you're not frugal about what you do in terms of spending then you run a risk that you're going to create a tremendous crevice between yourself and the teaching faculty your administration at the school that you happen to be in and again say that's true at Kansas State University as well though as always my feeling that we really have to do that yes there are certain things that you have to have in your program you need to fight for and a lot of them cost money but the point is don't be frugal or do be frugal excuse me in your in your expenditures and and how you deal with whatever your budget happens to be and that's what I want I want our athletic director - no I want our president - no I want our faculty to know that we are going to be very frugal in what we do and that's exactly the way we've done we have the smallest budget excuse me we have the smallest budget in the in the big 12 conference we had the smallest budget in the big 8 conference that's true as an athletic department true his football program as well but everybody there understands that we do not foolishly spend money and I and I have been in a program where money where there was ample money and it was a period of time when women's athletics was not quite as as much on the scene and consequently there was a little bit more and we made quite a bit as well and but we were not frugal whatsoever and the kind of money we spent really is kind of embarrassing because we spent money on things that were absolutely unnecessary in our program they were the frills of the program and I don't think you win because of frills I think you win or you're successful because of what you do with principles and values with people and with attitudes not with the things that money can buy now and to move on just a little bit here in terms of Education I think that's something that you I'm sure you do but I think it's important that people in your community your parents faculty members administration counselors etcetera understand that you are as deeply concerned about education as they are I'll tell you what has made our relationship at Kansas State University with our faculty one is very special and it has been solely and purely because we have the same goals in our program as they do as professors instructors and teachers with students at Kansas State University we want to provide an opportunity for young people in our program to have great success in their future whatever they're just in career field happens to be in their own personal lives that's important to us so consequently we have to have the same goal as a faculty member does because that should be what a goal of a faculty member is whether it happens to be at the college level or at the high school level and I think if you allow people in your building people in your school and your community to understand that then that will endear you I think in your program to the community and as I'll touch on a little bit later you know you need all the friends you can get I can assure you you know you're in a very precarious business people are gonna judge you in terms of success or failure you know at Division one a level they're gonna judge you on wins and losses that's just the way it is most of you understand that at the high school level it's it's that that is true in an awful lot of camp probably more than that it's not true that's how you're going to be judged and it's uncomfortable in that respect particularly if you're on the losing end of it I can assure you that but what I do believe is this that even though people are going to judge you in terms of wins and losses it's really is successes and failures that they're talking about and successes and failures come in a lot of different packages and all of it is not just on the field and what the scoreboard says and if you truly do have a genuine interest in young people and if you care about what young people do and you care about how they gain and learn values and principles then you and your own right will have a successful program because you're allowing young people to gain the knowledge and the understanding of what it takes to be successful and again you know there's there's a maybe a fine line sometimes between winning and losing being successful and not be successful but if you're on the right track in regards to principles and values I don't think that you're going to miss a boat by very much at all but in terms of education with your players I would there's a lot of things that I think that can be done at the high school level that I can relate to maybe what our program or any division 1a program might do you know you hear about study tables new hierba tutoring and a variety of different things and we've spent you know if we spent a great deal of money in any particular area probably the biggest facet has been in the education of the young people in our program what we can to do to provide them with the right support services I think that you can't spend that kind of money at the high school level but what I do understand is that you can develop some programs that really do endear yourselves again to the community and that shouldn't be the most important thing the most important thing is what can you do to help young people gain the best education that they can you know if study tables are important at the college level they can be important at the high school level in fact I don't know what your programs do but I know that as I go around the country there are a lot of high schools where coaching staffs have put together support services in terms of athletic or academics for players and their programs and they have study tables they have super supplement supervised study tables they have academic advisors for players in their program here's what concerns me so much ever did at the high school level and really still does you relate back I was in in high schools it varied in size the first coaching job I had was in Gallatin Missouri and the entire school district K through 12 had a hundred students in it now the when I when I finished at Foothill High School in Santa Ana California we had a school of maybe 2500 students 9 through 12 okay so it's a big variance at that particular school a counselor a counselor at Foothill High School would have maybe 400 students 4 or 500 students now you tell me what kind of attention and one of your players can get when his counselor has another 399 students to work with on a regular basis not not very good what we did at that because of that we went into our faculty we a lot of things with our faculty and one of the things after we had tried to bring the faculty into our program is that we asked faculty members that they would not serve as academic support people for players in our program so we could take a faculty member who was not a counselor he wasn't an academic advisor but would become one and would volunteer their time to spend a little bit of time with maybe three or four or five of our players on a regular basis and give them the same type of counseling that a counselor would but that counselor you know had another 399 he wasn't going to get to our guy very often and it really was an effective program and the faculty members enjoyed doing that now that you know maybe that's something that's a little little extra that's something that probably takes a little a little more work on your part in order to develop that type of program but those are the kind of things that really make things happen for you and it does help pull the whole ball of wax together in terms of faculty and and your program and it helps your youngsters I know this in dealing with faculty members that even at the high school level and at the college level as well what as I mentioned before it's awful easy if you're sitting in a math class to look over to that football program and say you know you know I want you know all we want is a telescope or all we want is a microscope or all we want is a half a dozen new beakers I can't get them but that football coach over there is out there spending thousands upon thousands upon thousands of dollars to get this little blocking sled that sits over in the corner nine months out of the year and nobody uses it why can't I have some of that money immediately that puts you at odds with that faculty member then then when you go into that faculty lunch room or that faculty lounge then that individuals in there and he shares that information with other people and pretty soon there's discontent among the ranks quite obviously I think it's important for us to be able to dissolve that and be able to not sit back and be but you know what it's a reactive but to be proactive in that risk what we've tried to do and we didn't do this at the high school level I think you can we do it at Kansas State University because we have the same problem you know there's not a faculty to be honest there's not a faculty member there's not a person our campus that makes as much money and a salary as I do okay now it would be awful easy and if I sat in their chair I'd say why in the hell is he making that kind of money and I'm making this kind of money and I'm the one that is teaching young people and giving them an opportunity to have success down down the road it's important for me to be able to educate our faculty and allow them to understand that wait a minute we're doing something really special for these young people and I want you to understand what it is we have nine colleges at Kansas State University and I can relate that you can relate this to the high school level we have nine colleges I've got a coach that is assigned to every single one of those colleges and that coach goes to the Dean of that College to the associate Dean's of that College of the faculty members of that College and communicates with them on a very regular basis takes them out to lunch sits down spend some time with them shares with them information about our program and gains information about their program I think you can do the same thing at the high school level I think you could have a coach that's involved with the math department one that's involved is that liaison with the science department one's the liaison with the English department etc and branch out into your school and so that you can gain support from the people that are there and are going to judge you on a very regular basis in the lunchroom and in the faculty room etc and throughout the community it's important to have them on your side if you've got them on your side they're not going to be against you you don't have them on your side where are they going to be and then they become a problem and you and I tell you what football is is hard enough as it is without having to deal with outside problems all of you certainly understand that that's been beneficial to us I send to our faculty members at Kansas State a letter kind of a state of the program letter I sit down and write all the little programs that were involved with what our players do outside of Saturday afternoon I tell them as much about our program as I can possibly get into letter form I do that about six or seven times year that gives faculty members a an understanding of what we're all about because they don't understand what we're all about how often if you had somebody walk up to you and it's it's it's right now in the summertime right and I said what do you do what are you doing the summertime somebody asked me I mean I hear it all the time what do you do in the summertime you know you take a four month vacation what is it that you do think well I'll tell you what I work just as hard I've during the season I'm at my office seven days a week 18 hours a day that's minimum day is 18 hours I can assure you that during the out of season if I'm not traveling doing these types of things then I'm in the office and I'm in the office just as long in just as many days out of the week and it takes that much for us now I'm a slow learner takes me longer than it does most people but that's exactly what our what our work habits are all about but nobody really understands that so we provide a variety of different things nobody understands that our players are out in the community they go into the retirement homes they go into the hospitals they they work with needy children in the community we have a VIP program where we've taken the most incorrigible youngsters in the in the community and brought them into our program and made our players big brothers to these young people and tried to help develop their lives so they can get back into the mainstream of the educational system in Manhattan Kansas I bring those things up because those are things that you can do you can do that in the high school level you can relate to the junior high school level again that's if you want to be in for the long haul or if you want to have a plan that's in for the long haul whether you end up being there or not as I said ends up being another another story those are valuable things we've had I don't know how you can relate to this but I'm sure you can and in some particular way I know a lot of people at the high school level who will bring teachers or instructors along on trips when you go you know the crosstown to play or out of the you know 50 miles away whatever put them on the bus and take them with you and they're involved with with whatever the game day activities are we don't do that and I have and I don't for a particular reason because I want to make sure that what they're around is always positive and I can't tell you you know when you're around a bunch of football coaches dealing with players you know sometimes maybe it's not always people can take things out of perspective sometimes but we do I put you know we have a new press box we just built it's got Suites in it I have to have one of them and and I bring our faculty members into that suite on a regular rotating basis so that they can come and bring their families and watch the ballgame on a Saturday afternoon that's been really it's been very special to them I I have a TV show and I bring the deans of every single college at our University onto that show and allow them the opportunity then to expound about the positive things that take place in their programs as well they have a great appreciation for that I believe that our football program has this fine and relationship with our faculty of Kansas State as any football faculty relationship in the country I honestly believe that I don't know all the others so I've you know I can't give you the factual information on that but I certainly believe that's the case and it's because we have worked very hard at it and I and I don't have I I tell you I give you an example about three years ago and I this is this is what our community has has learned about our program and how they support our program and I think that can same thing can take place at the high school level about three or four years ago a guy who had just been hired on as a managing editor of the local newspaper wanted to write an article about coaches salaries and when he came to me I told him that wasn't really wasn't his business and I wouldn't release that well there is obviously Public Information Act that says you have to release that so we did our university had to they were forced to by law they released my salary it was in the newspaper and the guy and the guy wrote it up it wasn't overly critical but he was still alluding to the fact that you know here's guys making quite a bit of money and there's a lot of other people in the you know the chemistry teachers not making all that much money etc etc that newspaper that news but in 24 hours that newspaper lost 1 million dollars in advertising 1 million dollars the local community said we're not going to have that you know you're not gonna do that you know this is a program and this is an individual who was in our community and he is trying to help our community out and his service to our community and they pull that they pulled a million dollars of advertising away from that newspaper in 24 hours a week later the gentleman that was there was in Boston Massachusetts looking for a job the managing it hurt that who had been in Manhattan for one one week or so now he wasn't wrong about writing the article that's that's not the point I mean that's what newspaper people do the point is the point is that we have endeared ourselves to a community because we have put our program at a service level for our community in the school and in the community our people are involved we had a we had a flood I mean there are just so many little things that you can do that may seem little to so many people in it so yes it's a little extra work it's a little extra headache but that's what your role is you know we are service-oriented people so we had a flood in Manhattan Kansas you know that they remember the flood of the Midwestern flood that took place here about three years ago and we took we took every single player in our program and we went into the community and coaches alike and and did sandbagging for I think three consecutive days until the water subsided that was important to our community I became they've asked me to become the president of the Friends of the library at Kansas State University we just finished now this is about four years ago we just finished structure a construction of a brand new library which is probably the finest physical facility and terms of what it looks like of any in the United States a beautiful beautiful structure we have raised an awful lot of money I spent some time with it and obviously because of being the football coach just a position that you happen to be in a lot of people look to you for guidance and for leadership and that's the way it is your community people will look to you for guidance and for leadership and some direction and we were able to raise an awful lot of money to build a multi Multi multi million dollar facility and as I said it's it's a beautiful structure that has allowed people to look at our football program and say you know that football program cares about more than just on the field wins and losses and that has that has been a great value to us a great value to us I think it's important for you in your communities to allow people to make football important to them but you've got to get into the other aspects of the community and make their thing their niche has got to be important to you as well you know I encourage you to be around your faculty and whatever their program happens to be that's why we have somebody that's assigned to each one of the college's if they have a problem if they have issues and concerns then I want to help deal with it and in the community when we have a problem we want to help deal with it and and when I say we we're talking about our football program and everybody sees us now at part of the community and working together make it important you want people to talk about your football program but you want them to talk about it in a positive aint if you're helping the boys club if you're helping the YMCA the YWCA if you're helping the poor and the needy in your community if you're into retirement centers and talking with the elderly and spending time with them when I say you I'm talking about your program then when people talk about that there is nothing they can say other than that's a real positive thing you got to understand how all that builds up and it's time you know into something you say well you know I don't have time for that and you know five years from now I'm going to gone for years now I'm going to be gone three years now I'm going to be gone I'll be someplace else listen that will carry you that will that will be with you wherever you go if you just if you have a plan and cure it out in that respect and try to gain the support of your entire community and again support is there if indeed it's genuine and that's one of the things that you want to address to and I'm like I said up running too long here but I'm putting these things up and let me share this too with you if there's anything that you're interested in when we finish here today whatever it is that I've got that that's up here if you'd like to have copies of it I don't have copies with me but if you leave me your name and your address and what it is you want I'll be more than happy to send any of it give it to you the establishing concern for player to personnel or personal development you know if you study high are college programs you know one of the big trends has been this total development type programs you know what I'm talking about that everybody feels like okay we've got to have the capacity to at the college level to develop you know the world fibre of young people certainly they're how they deal with social issues etc etc anything and everything that is accessible to young people and a concern about young people we are being held responsible for it at the high school level I don't know whether you are or not I doubt that you are I wasn't when I was at the high school level but what I assure you that I think is important is if you accept the responsibility for that if you do so then you're gonna you're gonna make a great addition to a young guys life let me tell you very quickly what I do and in reference here to personal development one is role modeling yes and you know you've got to be the role model I mean that goes without saying if you're not then then you have really no one is going to trust your no one is really going to trust the things that you say and it is one of the things then do as I as ice not as I do and I don't think you want to get caught off in that so you have to establish role modeling for players in your program I think it's important to to get players associated with positive role models we try to place our players in a position to be around positive role models we have a transition program I don't again I have depending on on which universities you're around University of Wyoming et cetera and I know they have a similar type promo type program but they have a one of those total development programs where you know you bring all kinds of people in to spend time with with your young guys and try to address a lot of different issues we do the same thing but we do it as as a class so our players you know because they're strapped for time anyway and we've asked them to do so many things and they have spent so much time on football and they got to spend a lot of time in terms of academics and studying now we turn around and ask them to have people come in and then take their what little free time they have and spend it talking about alcohol abuse and substance abuse and sexually related issues and a variety of different things like that well that's good information for them but we're again we're saturating them with so many things that they have absolutely no time whatsoever to be just them so we have a what we call a transition class and I and I think you could do exactly the same type of thing at the high school level I in fact I I'm positive that you could and I tell you what it would endear you to your superintendent your principal and all the people involved here's what our class does we put all of our football players in a class and it's not that basket weaving 101 type of thing we put them in a class it's called freshman transition class and every single one of our players is there I have control over the class that means that they're going to be in class every single time attendance is going to be 100% perfect throughout the entirety of the year this is going to become a two-year class for us they get credit for it they get they get credit out of the School of Education and arts and science and in in the class we bring people from all over the state from our university from within our community who come in and address issues with our players and these are people who understand these particular issues you know how players are sometimes they get tired of you and I trying to tell them that they need to do right all the time I mean they do I mean we've got their their best interests at heart I know you do when you tell them about a lot of different things but they get tired of hearing it they don't want to hear it from you anymore they don't want to hear it from mom and dad anymore okay so where do they go well you know the schools offered hurtin things at the college level it isn't offered so we have this class they go to that class and we bring people in and we rest everything that could be a problem for a young person who is a student athlete a football athlete at Kansas State University coming out of the high school level and there are a lot of pitfalls a lot of pitfalls I think you could do exactly the same thing we address we have people come in professionally address the things I just talked about sexually related issues big problem okay substance abuse dealing with successes dealing with failures you know those are those are problem areas we do I got a curriculum of about or a course of study of about 18 or 19 different segments like that that we address that are areas that could be a real concern to young people and to their families I think you could do that at the high school level you know even if you or one of your coaches ended up teaching the class I don't teach the class but I monitor the class and I make sure that it's going right and I we bring as I said I have somebody that that helps me with it and we bring people in that can address the major issues and our class are our players now are not caught with okay you gotta give up Saturday for three hours to hear somebody come in and talk about gambling you got to give up three hours of next Monday evening to hear somebody come in and talk to you about agents or hear somebody talk about the substance abuse or alcohol abuse etc all those different types of things things that you can do to enhance that program to make it better and and too often that's not what we do you know when we have when we're in in the role of an assistant of some sorts and I really encourage our guys when I bring them in is not only to accept the responsibilities they have but encourage them to seek responsibilities because you can't every guy on my staff can be such a great assistant you know they could think they've everybody's got good ideas you've got great ideas they my ideas aren't aren't the best and they're not all-encompassing you know it takes everybody but too often we get caught off in X's and O's and that's all we're gonna you know I've got guys that that's that's what I want to do you know they just want to be X's knows X's knows all the rest of the stuff they don't want to touch we can't we can't be successful if we're made up of coaches that that's all that they can do so I our coaches on our staff have a have a my rate of responsibilities they don't have to when I was coming through you know we didn't have we didn't have strength coaches and we didn't have academic advisors and you know we didn't have all these guys that I've got now I've got so many people I've got more more people around doing things and I have coach or than I have players almost you know you just got somebody that fits into all those bailiwick so all of a sudden a new breed of coaches you know yourselves probably included many of it is you think well that's somebody else's problem that's the academic visors problem that's a trainers problem that's a etc I'm making as I've mentioned down here in a minute that I make our coaches responsible for their players and when I say responsible I'm talking about they're responsible for their players in every aspect of their life every aspect of their life everything that takes place with that young guy our coaches are responsible for it and so when we have you know if there's something to do with academics we have a coach yes we've got an academic advisor we've got a ton of academic advisors a ton of tutors a ton of people that deal with that we have a coach that does exactly that as well we have a coach that's involved with every aspect of the program and I believe that's important and because those are some responsibilities that need to be taken care of with people of authority you know when we talk about given coach's responsibility as well and I mentioned down here someplace encourage coaches to seek responsibility expect it to get done and demand that it gets done now that I think whether you know if you have people working underneath you that becomes awfully important and that is that you not only expect it to get done but you demand that it gets done if you're going to give somebody responsibility you doggone well better make sure that it gets done because it boils down to this you know if they don't get it done it's going to fall back in your lap there's this thing that again that I mentioned in here someplace if it is to be I've always lived by this if it is to be it's up to me meaning you give the responsibility but you'd better be prepared to take the responsibility but really what you've given someone else to do but it's important to make sure that you hold the people responsible I think it's important and I tell our staff this all the time and I tell our players I want everybody in our program to be responsible equally responsible for winning and losing the everybody wants to take the responsibility for winning don't they and is there's got not a guy in this room you know when your team wins you want the responsibility for having one that's human nature but how many of you willing to step up on you know when the when the time comes that you don't win you know when you lose the ballgame who's willing to take the responsibility for that not very many now when we lose I'm gonna publicly take the responsibility but I assure you that if I sit back and I go into a staff meeting and I take the responsibility port it just becomes that much easier to lose it becomes that much easier for everybody in our program to accept losing I want everybody in our program to be responsible for losing as well as winning I think in in my role it's important that when we do win that I make sure that the people think credit for it or the guys that play the game and the coaches that coached the game and other support people involved so you have to share the credit if you're gonna ask him to be responsible but then when we go into private if we've lost or if we have been unsuccessful and we put it that way then I'm going to make sure that everybody understands you know who's responsible and that our coaches are equally responsible for losing as well as winning and I think you really struggle if you don't if you're not able to address it that way okay priorities you know I say this and that is reminiscent of the fella I was talking about Edie Bain I think there are so much going on in football there's so many things that you can do I mean you can if you want to scout an opponent you can go through Tennessee I mean yeah you can get paper stacks this high on tendencies that other people do but can you process at all I think what you have to do is you've got to figure out what your priorities are and if it's if something that's really important then you make it and work if it's not important then get rid of it get it out of your system get it out of your program deal with just those things you know I bet every one of you can do the same thing you go through with all this the chaff right now and everything that's you know you've got files you've got file cabinets now that are overflowing you know you got some venom that you accumulate and collect hey if it is not directly involved with you being successful in your program get rid of it why have trivia you know clutters a system well organized systems are successful programs that are cluttered with trivia are the ones that fail you know too much trying to do too much not having a convinced not mean things important I believe this is what I tell our coaches I don't really care what we do on offense and defense we're going to stay with the system we have I don't care what you know new systems etc yes we want it we don't want to fall behind the times but as I promised our players we're not going to change system we'll just we'll massage it from time to time but that's not the important not the important thing you know the important thing again is understanding those are our priorities and those are the things that we're going to work at and we can and you can too you can be good a player can be good a program can be good at anything it wants to become good at if that is what you put your emphases on if you want to be a good option football team then you put emphasis on option and you will be a good option football team if you want if there's something else that you want to do if you want to block pumps I mean if you just say I'm committed to blocking and you do something about being committed to blocking punts you know what you will block pumps you'll block pumps you know when I when I took that job at Foothill High School my first head coaching job and so I said you know we're going to have the answer to everything we're going to have an offense it goes to the line of scrimmage and whatever defense you're going to get into we're going to change the play and get into the best offensive play that suits that great idea great idea but when we go on the practice field the first couple of times our quarterback went out and checked a couple of things and he checked the wrong things and I didn't like it so we sat down and I sat down with quarterbacks and I'd coach the quarterbacks and in terms of of audibles so it wasn't anybody else's responsibility and I say when this happened you check to this when this happens you check to this etc etc but when we go to the practice field I wouldn't let him practice it because he didn't do it very good but I still went into a ball game with him except having to have the responsibility to being able to change plays you know I was 23 years old when I'm when I'm trying to do this and that's not a bad I mean it just it was an unworkable thing unmanageable because I didn't spend the time doing the things I didn't make it important and here it was important but we didn't spend the time in it we weren't committed to it I think you know you got to look at things like that that are in your program and say hey you know are we able to do these things or are we not and if we're gonna do them let's make them important if we want to do them if they're good let's do getting people involved I I think I've addressed this for the most part I just think it's important for you to get as many people involved in your program as you possibly can like I said a minute ago if they're with you they can't be against you and that's one thing in today's world of athletics it's important to have as many people on your side as you possibly can the other things I've already talked about in terms of getting people involved sending out the letters I do have this which I didn't mention a while ago every player our excuse me every coach in our program and coaches don't really like to do this but after a while I understand how valuable this every single coach in our program Falls the parents of every single one of his players once a month 12 months out of the year now I get feedback in terms of letters and phone calls from parents that can't begin to express mean that's what they say I can't begin to express how important it is to receive that phone call from coach Jones you know every month or every so often that he calls to talk about his son and really what they do is they call and just talk about what's going on period what's happening with our program what's happened with Johnny how he's doing in the classroom how he's doing off the field how he's doing in practice etc and and and our coaches and our players parents work together in trying to help motivate young people as well because parents can have a gonna have a role in that I think that's an easy thing to do in high school of course you have greater access to parents because you get to see them a lot in boosters clubs meetings and things like that and around the community we don't have that but I would venture to say that there probably aren't any programs where you know everybody has dialogue where coaches talk to parents I understand that but when we go into homes to recruit and and we're recruiting somebody who has a brother who is somewhere else the the we always talk about this program and no one has ever said to me well you know you know we get those same phone calls from Johnny at X Y U University the comment that I always get is gee that sounds great you know we've lost contact with our son you know when he first went to college he was calling us every day and after a year we have to we have to try to round him up and we can't get ahold of him and nobody ever calls to let us know anything we have to call if we want to find out something from a football staff so our parents truly appreciate that I think you can do that at high school level care about people care about your players be genuine you know you got to be you I understand that I've got to be me whether our players like it or whether our coaches like it or not that's the way I have to be but I tell you what the thing that distinguishes all of us and allows people to trust you and a lot of it boils down to being able to trust each other and that is if your players know that you genuinely care about their best interests that's a hard sell sometimes you know it's easy to say you know I get up in front of players and say hey I care about you if we care about you well you know how kids are today and that and rightfully so they should be this way you know it doesn't make any difference what I say it doesn't make a difference what you say to your players it's what you do if you show them that you genuinely care if they see that you know and and sometimes that may serve under that that that the concept of tough love you know because you do have discipline with him here's an assistant coach here's what happened so often I see it in college football you'd be amazed at it I see it all across country assistant coaches want to be good guys they want to get their arm around that guy that's playing big guy normally but they want their arm around that guy and they want him to know that you love them to death okay and you'd do anything in the world form that's not all bad but the one thing you won't do for them is you won't discipline them you won't discipline okay if something bad happens it's still a good guy it's okay everything's all right if there's any discipline it's going to have to come from the top down see that's wrong and that's not right and that's not good for that kid and and if that if that youngster believes that you really care about him when you refuse to discipline him he learned differently very quickly and you haven't done him any favors whatsoever and that's the thing that will get a coach on my staff in trouble quicker and get him on the job market quicker than anything else and that is if he doesn't have the kind of relationship and discipline with the people and the young people that he coaches and making sure that they that he's responsible for holding them responsible and that they become accountable to the system to the program to the other players to the coaches and he holds him accountable as well and if you don't you're not doing the job that you're destined to do that you're supposed to do that makes this coaching career something real special okay I that's you know there's a few other things that I could share but there's got a got to get going right here I don't know if there's a I let me close with with this one thing because we've because we have talked about a lot of different things and we talked about players and and responsibilities and and I mentioned a minute ago what a tough time it is for young people in our society today and I think you probably realize that some of you through it yourselves the rest of you you know just understand by being around young people we talk to our young people about making decisions and if you're making a decision for you as a coach as a person if you're making a decision for you our philosophy our approach to it has always been this you know whatever it is that I make a decision to do and no one that I'm going to have to make a lot of decisions first of all I'm gonna make the decision that is in the very best interest of our football program and sometimes that's not in the best interest of an individual and I really have to take that in consideration so as an assistant coach it's important for our coaches to understand the global aspect of it I think that's really important as a system understand the global thing when I have an assistant coach I I didn't pay as much attention to everything that was going around I was one of those guys that just got in my niche for the most of my career not all of it but I was one of those guys that just got involved with doing certain things X's knows fundamentals you know guys to be the best they could be and all that was good but I didn't have as good a concept originally when I was a young coach as I should have the global picture of the total picture and I think you've got it you need to be able to take that into consideration because there are going to be decisions that are made by someone else by the head coach that are not going to be real popular with you but the decisions probably are going to be made and based on not you individually but what is in the best interest of the entire program and that's the way it should be I encourage you to do that the other thing is if you're going to make decisions based on what you do and it's important to you I just always ask myself a question first of all what are my priorities and then I'm going to make a decision based on those priorities okay and if it will help me it's like I said with our players wanted to be the best person best student best football athlete they can possibly be okay I want to make the decision based on what's best for our program and that's exactly what I do my question every time I have a decision to make is that will it make our program better will it make this football program better and if the answer is yes we're going to do it you can bank on if the answer is no you're not going to do it we're not going to do it you can bank on that as well I share this philosophy with our players and I would I would encourage you to think about it I'm a big believer in process I'm a big believer in plans I'm a big believer in having a process by which you do things so you're doing it the same way all the time and you get a lot of repetition at it you become better at it when young people make decisions they don't have a process and I think if you could do one thing in life any of us it is to help young people have a process by which they make decisions you know what those young guys don't want to hear they don't want to hear anymore saying you got to make the right decision you got to make the right decision choices you got these choices you got to make the right choices I mean they just are sick and tired of hearing it all the time what they need is not us telling them that they've got to make the right choice in other words we're trying to tell them the difference between right and wrong that's an insult the young people hell they're smart enough to figure out what's right what's wrong they know that well we've got to do is give them a process by which they can make decisions for themselves and we hope that they're the right ones I ask our players to do this and this must stop with ask our players at every single time they have a decision to make understanding that most of the decisions they make will have no significance on their life a few of them will have a moderate impact on their life and a few decisions maybe a very few but a few decisions they make will have a dramatic impact on the rest of their life that's a given that's going to happen every time the opportunity comes to make a decision take 10 seconds out of your life just 10 seconds and for me that's a long time you know for young guys that's nothing and take a step back just get away from it take take 10 seconds how do you life and step back and ask yourself a question if I do this will it make me better what my priorities are and as I talked to Kansas State players I say your priorities outside of your faith and outside of your family is to be the best person be the best student be the best football athlete you can be if the decision to do what you're been asked to do or is in front of you will help you become better at all those then do it with the greatest enthusiasm you can muster and if the answer is no or if it will not help you in those and those aspects of your life then don't do it consider the circumstances consider obviously what's going to take place if you do those things make a decision based on what your priorities are now that doesn't mean that that's the proper for everybody that that's the right way to make decisions but it is a process and that's what I think your role is as a coach and teacher of young people and a leader of young people is to give them a process by which they can make decisions then they're not looking at you to say well as this writer is this wrong because they're not going to look to you for that anyway they know the answer already see now they're able to step back and say okay it's on my shoulders it's my responsibility but I'm going to take a moment and process this to make the best decision that I can if you can get young people to buy into that you've done something really really special listen for giving up the opportunity to be out in this great weather and up in the mountains and doing all those kind of things you're here tells me one thing about all of you here that football is important to you then it means something to you and it means something in your life and you're willing to make some sacrifices in order for it to be special in your life don't forget that you have control you have guidance you have leadership over young people that need your help you can be not only great leaders with your program you can be great leaders in your community around your school you know in all aspects of the community life that you're involved with because it affects young people you have a great impact and if you do the right things by them then it'll pay off tenfold I can assure you that I appreciate you being here thank you very much for it and it isn't a little late you guys on and enjoy the rest your day go do whatever it is that you that you do around here write down those drafts or whatever it is but have fun doing it thank you all [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Coaches Choice

Views: 4,965

Keywords: instructional coaching videos, videos, coaching, instructional football videos, NFL, American Football, Football, highlights, sports, clips

Id: hIB0tQthM44

Length: 69min 30sec (4170 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 02 2019