"The third little pig worked hard all day and built his house with bricks...
Now, the two little pigs were terrified and ran to the third pig’s house that was made of bricks.
The big bad wolf tried to huff and puff and blow the house down, but he could not. He kept trying for hours but the house was very strong and the little pigs were safe inside."
Setting Expectations
Year one is the toughest year when setting and establishing your expectations for your program. You will do a lot of things substantially different than the previous coach. It is your job to build a solid foundation for future growth with your expectations and the way you run the program.
Tip 1: You can always lighten up, but it’s difficult to tighten up.
Set the bar very high. If you have a rule, you better follow through with the consequences for ALL players regardless of ability. One rule I have in my program is if you miss practice, you don’t play that week. In my first job, I sat kids that skipped practice weekly until week 6 I had to sit 5 starters. These 5 starters were really 10 starters because in a small school, a lot of players play both sides of the ball. I was ridiculed and told how unfair it was, but the craziest thing happened. We went out on Friday night with the backups and won the game. Those starters and their parents had an “Ah Ha” moment where they realized the program will go on without them. All of the sudden we didn’t have kids missing practice anymore. I didn’t really want to sit the starters because I love winning, but I knew that if I didn’t sit them and sacrifice the opportunity to win, I would never get the buy in from the players and parents. The foundation of being accountable and at practice every day was built and very rarely did we have kids miss for years to come.
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