I AM MAD AND NEED TO VENT MY ANGER!

I am mad and need to vent!  I just spoke with a swell guy in Virginia.  He is a former college football player and now lives in  the Tidewater Area of Virginia.  He loves the game and has a deep desire to help kids get out of some terrible situations and to get to the next level to play college football and a few to go on and go to the NFL BIG BOY LEAGUE!

He was telling me about a very bad situation that is occurring more and more each year for our young up-coming football players.  That is the fact that a lot of guys are running ill-organized and frankly terrible combines and football camps and just taking money from the kids.  Promising that if they come to their particular camp or combine that they WILL get a college football scholarship and GET NOTICED!!!!!!!!!

Getting NOTICED!!!!!! Seems to be the buzz word with these guys.  They tell the kids that all these college coaches are going to be at their combine or camp and as a result they will be SEEN!!!!!!!!   This is hardly true.  The NCAA does not allow D1 or D!AA coaches to attend these camps or combines and only D2, D3, NAIA or prep or community college coaches can attend.  Very frequently………..no college coaches are there.  I coach college football at Wingate University – a D2 school in North Carolina and I also run the HAWG TUFF FOOTBALL CAMPS AND CHALLENGES and have done so for the last twenty two years.  We are well-known for offering high quality football instruction at a low low cost to the kids that attend the camps.  We will be doing camps in SOUTH CAROLINA, NORTH CAROLINA, TEXAS, FLORIDA, MARYLAND, VIRGINIA, PENNSYLVANIA, NEW JERSEY AND TENNESSEE this year and are excited every camp to see our coaches and kids at the camp getting a great day of quality instruction and not be told that they are going to go to college simply because of the camp.  We have a ton of kids who have attended the camp that have gone on and became great high school players, went on to play college football and even some who have made it to the BIG LEAGUE OF NFL!   Our camp helps every kid from the not so talented one who learns a little more to help him become a decent player to the God-Given talents that can leap tall buildings and run like the wind.  I am very proud of what we do with the camps and challenges.

My vent is with the guys that see the kids as $$$$$dollar bills on legs and just try to get as many of the kids to their combine or camp as possible so that they can make $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ off these kids.   You as coaches, parents, and player’s ad fan need to be aware of this situation and check out the camps and combines that simply are there for a profit and a profit only.  You need to be check out the coaches working the camp or combine, the background of the camp or combine operator and also talk with people that know football about the +’s and –‘s of the camp or combine.

Camps and Combines can be great for the kids and they can help the kids become the kind of players that they dream to be. 

DO NOT LET THEM BECOME NIGHTMARES FOR YOU AS COACHES, PARENTS, FANS OR KIDS!  JUST BECAUSE SOMETHING LOOKS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE ——IT PROBABLY IS!

1. chronic fatigue
2. irritability
3. loss of self-confidence
4. apathy
5. fatigue that does go away with normal rest
6. anxiety
7. feelings of depression
8. loss or reduced appetite
9. sense of confusion

Youth Football Coaches Can Have a Huge Impact With the Smallest of Gestures

WRITTEN BY DAVE CISAR ON APRIL 27TH, 2012

Former Indian Land Coach Has Devoted His Life To Sport

By Bill Mitchell - Herald correspondent

COLUMBIA –

Editor’s note: Bill Mitchell covered high school sports for The State newspaper in Columbia from 1965-1987 and retired in 2000. He graduated from the University of South Carolina with a Masters in European History. Mitchell was asked by The Herald to read and review the book “Do They Play Football in Heaven?” that follows former Indian Land football coach Mike Pope through his various stops. The following is Mitchell’s thoughts. — Barry Byers, The Herald, Assistant Sport Editor

I thought I knew of Mike Pope. Rambling through the rather muddled file cabinet that passes for my brain now, I found the file.

Mike Pope, football and track coach, assistant football duties at Lancaster and Sumter, head football and track coach at Blackville-Hilda where he had a state championship football team, moved on to Indian Land. There the file ended.

That’s just the dry bare bones of a wonderful story brought to us by Wilt Browning, a veteran sports writer, and although Pope was never the biggest winner around, he was, and continues to be, admired and respected by many of his peers. He was special in the business.

Browning’s 211-page paperback book “Do They Play Football in Heaven?,” covers much of the coach’s life through his courtship and marriage to wife Ginger, fatherhood, shifts from one school to anther. Interesting antidotal information and entertaining, but not what makes the book a great story or read.

What is thrilling about the book is Pope’s unwavering devotion to the highest ideals of his profession. The building of good people, whether they wear your uniform or not, the teaching of life’s lessons through sport are its goals. In this case, football, but the same applies to all sports. Pope lives it.

Pope’s medical trials and tribulations, including diabetes that caused the loss of both lower legs, and his reaction to it, is uplifting. How many times had he exhorted his charges to “suck it up.” the time came when he lived what he preached.

He moved past the loss of his legs, worked like a Trojan at rehab and mastered his prothesis. He continues to coach at the college level as a volunteer and run what is his passion, the Hawg Tuff camps for offensive linemen.

Early on, he established the camps. Today the one-day events are held as far afield as Texas. Pope keeps the costs as low as possible. He wants to spread the football gospel.

The highest ideals of coaching are often almost Don Quixote like, virtually impossible for mortal man to live with. The competitive urge to win is always high. All too often fans, parents, coaches and school administrators alike lose track of the forest for the trees.

The creation of better people is the ultimate goal, a very high one indeed. And almost impossible to reach.

The pressure to win in our society has reached down to our youngest children. There is nothing wrong with winning. It just isn’t everything.

We see even legendary coaches fired because of a lapse in the win column. It happens all too often. Mike Pope lives the code. It costs him at least one job.

Mike Pope’s story reminds us of what is should be all about, what we need more of and inspires all of us to spend more time on the goal rather than the means to an end. This book is a great story well-told and brings us back to what is important in athletics.

Do they play football in heaven? They will in Mike Pope’s heaven. That’s heaven itself.

The Mike Pope story is published by Alabaster Book Publishing of P.O. Box 401, Kernersville, N.C., and may be ordered direct. Price is $20. It can be had through the Hawg Tuff website or by ordering it from your local book dealer.

“Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant – Be Nice to People”

At a TD Club meeting many years before his death, Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant told the following story, which was typical of the way he operated.

I had just been named the new head coach at Alabama and was off in my old car down in South Alabama recruiting a prospect who was supposed to have been a pretty good player and I was ‘havin’ trouble finding the place. Getting hungry I spied an old cinder block building with a small sign out front that simply said “Restaurant.” I pull up, go in and every head in the place turns to stare at me.

Seems I’m the only white ‘fella’ in the place. But the food smelled good so I skip a table and go up to a cement bar and sit. A big ole man in a tee shirt and cap comes over and says, “What do you need?”
I told him I needed lunch and what did they have today?

He says, “You probably won’t like it here, today we’re having chitlins, collared greens and black eyed peas with cornbread. I’ll bet you don’t even know what chitlins are, do you?” I looked him square in the eye and said, “I’m from Arkansas , I’ve probably eaten a mile of them. Sounds like I’m in the right place.” They all smiled as he left to serve me up a big plate.

When he comes back he says, “You ain’t from around here then?” And I explain I’m the new football coach up in Tuscaloosa at the University and I’m here to find whatever that boy’s name was and he says, yeah I’ve heard of him, he’s supposed to be pretty good. And he gives me directions to the school so I can meet him and his coach. As I’m paying up to leave, I remember my manners and leave a tip, not too big to be flashy, but a good one and he told me lunch was on him, but I told him for a lunch that good, I felt I should pay.

The big man asked me if I had a photograph or something he could hang up to show I’d been there. I was so new that I didn’t have any yet. It really wasn’t that big a thing back then to be asked for, but I took a napkin and wrote his name and address on it and told him I’d get him one.

I met the kid I was ‘lookin’ for later that afternoon and I don’t remember his name, but do remember I didn’t think much of him when I met him. I had wasted a day, or so I thought.

When I got back to Tuscaloosa late that night, I took that napkin from my shirt pocket and put it under my keys so I wouldn’t forget it. Heck, back then I was excited that anybody would want a picture of me. And the next day we found a picture and I wrote on it, Thanks for the best lunch I’ve ever had, Paul Bear Bryant.

Now let’s go a whole ‘buncha’ years down the road. Now we have black players at Alabama and I’m back down in that part of the country scouting an offensive lineman we sure needed. Y’all remember, (and I forget the name, but it’s not important to the story), well anyway, he’s got two friends going to Auburn and he tells me he’s got his heart set on Auburn too, so I leave empty handed and go on see some others while I’m down there.

Two days later, I’m in my office in Tuscaloosa and the phone rings and it’s this kid who just turned me down, and he says, “Coach, do you still want me at Alabama ?” And I said, “Yes I sure do.” And he says, o.k. he’ll come. And I say, “Well son, what changed your mind?” And he said, “When my grandpa found out that I had a chance to play for you and said no, he pitched a fit and told me I wasn’t going nowhere but Alabama , and wasn’t playing for nobody but you. He thinks a lot of you and has ever since y’all met.”

Well, I didn’t know his granddad from Adam’s housecat so I asked him who his granddaddy was and he said, “You probly don’t remember him, but you ate in his restaurant your first year at Alabama and you sent him a picture that he’s had hung in that place ever since. That picture’s his pride and joy and he still tells everybody about the day that Bear Bryant came in and had chitlins with him. My grandpa said that when you left there, he never expected you to remember him or to send him that picture, but you kept your word to him and to Grandpa, that’s everything. He said you could teach me more than football and I had to play for a man like you, so I guess I’m going to.”

I was floored. But I learned that the lessons my mama taught me were always right. It don’t cost nuthin’ to be nice. It don’t cost ‘nuthin’ to do the right thing most of the time, and it costs a lot to lose your good name by breakin’ your word to someone. When I went back to sign that boy, I looked up his Grandpa and he’s still running that place, but it looks a lot better now; and he didn’t have chitlins that day, but he had some ribs that ‘woulda’ made Dreamland proud and I made sure I posed for a lot of pictures; and don’t think I didn’t leave some new ones for him, too, along with a signed football. I made it clear to all my assistants to keep this story and these lessons in mind when they’re out on the road. And if you remember anything else from me, remember this – It really doesn’t cost anything to be nice, and the rewards can be unimaginable.

Coach Bryant was in the presence of these few gentlemen for only minutes, and he defined himself for life, to these gentlemen, as a nice man.

Regardless of our profession, we do define ourselves by how we treat others, and how we behave in the presence of others, and most of the time, we have only minutes or seconds to leave a lasting impression – we can be rude, crude, arrogant, cantankerous, or we can be nice. Nice is always a better choice.

I like what Stephen Grellet, French/American religious leader (1773-1855) said,

“I expect to pass through the world but once. Any good therefore that I can do, or any kindness I can show to any creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer it, for I shall not pass this way again.”

Five Sports Life Skills EVERY Player Can Master

While it is true that a small percentage of parents today view the youth sports experience as a training grounds for a future college athletic scholarship (and possibly a professional sport opportunity), most parents are more grounded with their thinking and set more realistic goals for their kids (The Parents Playbook).  For these parents, the ultimate goal is to simply have a positive experience with youth sports,one that will help their children grow in healthy physical and emotional ways.  If a college scholarship is eventually awarded to their child, it’s viewed as a “bonus,” and not the final destination after years of competing in youth sports.  This, of course, is a very healthy way to approach the youth sport experience, and one that offers the best chance for the child to learn important life lessons as a result.

In order for a family to fully experience all the potential benefits that youth sports provide, I am providing a short list of important learning points to focus on throughout your child’s athletic career so that she will not only play to her highest potential on the field, but also use the sport experience to maximize her overall human development as well:

• Process Goals – Most parents encourage their child to play hard enough to one day become the best kid on the team (or league).  There’s nothing wrong with this encouragement, of course, but keep in mind that all outcome goals (like becoming an All Star or team MVP) always begin with process goals. When thinking about process goals, keep in mind these are the types of goals that are fully under the control of the athlete(like maintaining a strength training program, running, mastering plays, etc.).  Outcome goals are not completely under the control of the athlete, especially if the goal is to win an award thats voted on by the coaching staff or league.
• Focus - Parents can help their children with focus at very young ages by teaching the basics — like learning how to pay attention to relevant cues (i.e. the next pitch) while ignoring irrelevant cues (i.e. the people in the crowd).  The skill of focus is an important one, and can also be transferred to many other areas in life — including the classroom.
• Resiliency – The old saying of “It’s not how many times you get knocked down, but how many times you get up” may be one of the greatest lessons that can be learned through sports.  Resiliency, or mental toughness, is a terrific skill to help your child master as there are countless sport experiences that involve stress, frustration, adversity, and losing.   Resiliency also helps with motivation — another great life success skill!
• Humility – Winning with grace and keeping the ego in check are skills parents can teach their kids through various successful sport experiences.  Humiliating, taunting, and embarrassing opponents are never good things – on or off the field.
• Sportsmanship – Similarly to winning with grace, kids can also learn to be good sports during those tough times as well – like after a humiliating loss, or after experiencing a blown call by a referee.  Sports, like life, aren’t always “fair,” but what’s most important is to respect the rules and opponent at all times – even when spirits are down.

Sport psychology studies have revealed countless life lessons that can be learned through youth sports, but the five skills presented here are at the top of my list.  Conduct your own family audit and see how your gang stacks up — are you fully capitalizing on the youth sport experience, or missing out on some of the big take-aways for your son or daughter?

If you want to help your child get the most out of his or her sport experience but feel you could use some help in accomplishing this task, check out Sport Success 360 and begin setting your family sports goals today!

Defining The Coaches Role In Recruiting

I have always seen helping my players with recruiting as a “no-brainer.”  Of course coaches would want to help their athletes get into college and play college football if the opportunity was there for them!  But the longer I have been part of the coaching community, the more I have thought that I am in the minority of coaches on this subject.

But now, more than ever, coaches need to step up and take control of the recruiting process.  There are many different people out there that are looking to profit off our kids and steer them in the wrong direction and for that reason we need to be more active in our involvement.

This sentiment is shared in a resent position paper released by the Michigan High School Football Coaches Association.  Check it out below to better understand the potential problems in the recruiting process and how you as a coach can make a big difference.

MHSFCA Recruiting Position Paper, 2012

The purpose of this Recruiting Position statement is to bring focus and clarity to the high school football recruiting process.  The Michigan High School Football Coaches Association and our State of Michigan College Coaches have joined together with the hope of properly educating our parents and student athletes.  We all are concerned with the number of misleading business practices that do nothing to help students fulfill their dream of a college athletic career.

Areas of Concern:

1. Paying a Private Recruiting Services is not advised:  Paying a recruiting service for “exposure” or for help with the recruiting process does little to help in recruiting.  The NCAA mandates and approves all recruiting services colleges can use.  Most of these services are not accessible to the public.  All of these services are free to the high school coach and student athletes.  There is no harm in using “free” services, but make sure the services are NCAA approved.  Most emails and “exposure” packets sent by services paid at the parents expense is considered “spam” and mostly sent to the trash.
2. Private Combines and Showcases: Results from combines most local, private “combines” or “showcases” are questionable and Numbers and scores from such events may not be credible to a college coach.  National combines may have more clout but are usually invitation only.   In addition, the NCAA has very strict guidelines colleges need to follow as well as possible issues regarding amateur status.
3. “AAU” model events: Football coaches at all levels disagree with this AAU type approach becoming a part of high school football.  Lead by the Southeastern Conference (SEC) most colleges will no longer allow such events held on their campuses.  There are a number of legislative proposals at all levels of football to restrict such events.  These events may offer intense competition and some skill improvement, but real game performance still determines scholarship offers.

Truths of the Recruiting Process:

1. Exposure: Exposure comes from your high school coach.  College coaches will continue to acquire prospect information from the high school coaches.  These relationships are based on a trust built over time.  Secondly, send every college a personal letter and game DVD yourself.  All college programs have a staff directory on their web sites.
2. Role of the High School Coach: Every college coach wants a truthful relationship with the high school coach.  Truthful is the key factor.  College coaches use a number of sources to cross-check every potential prospect.  Inflated numbers, dishonest evaluations can hurt the high school coach’s’ future recruits.   The role of the high school coach is to:
   1. Supply viewable game tapes (in winter of junior year for most D1, middle to end of season for seniors)
   2. Correct and honest student bio information and a copy of the high school transcript.
   3. Complete the NCAA approved recruiting services forms so the prospects are listed in the publication.
   4. Attending the MHSFCA December recruiting fairs should also be fulfilled by either the high school head coach or a member of the high school staff.  A number of colleges will only recruit our state at these fairs.
3. Attend College Camps: This is where most college scholarships are awarded.  Attend and perform at the different college camps in-front of college coaches.  Student athletes need to perform in front of the college coaches.  College coaches want information they can trust.  Performing on a college campus and against other prospects can reinforce a prospects evaluation.  All camp dates are on every web site.
4. Game Tapes:  “The eye in the sky doesn’t lie!” College coaches evaluate student athletes based on real game tape footage.  Make sure the college coaches have your game tape at the appropriate time (December of Junior year for D1).  If they feel you are a real prospect, they will connect with you or your coach (given NCAA restrictions).  The higher the division desired, the earlier the tapes are needed.  For example, some D1 offers could be based on sophomore and most are based on junior game tape.

Important Aspects of Fulfilling the Dream of a Collegiate Athletic Career

1. Understand the NCAA and NAIA Academic Eligibility rules before the student athletes ninth grade year begins.  The NCAA continues to add more restrictions to their eligibility process.  The Class of 2013 will now need 16 core classes to qualify as a D2 athlete.  The Class of 2015 will need a 2.3 GPA to qualify as a D1 athlete.  Academic eligibility begins with the first semester report card in the 9^th grade.  All students and parents need to calculate the students NCAA CORE GPA every semester beginning with the 9^th grade.
2. The overall GRADE POINT AVERAGE (GPA) is the most important number in the recruiting process.  The higher the GPA above a 3.0, the more athletic opportunities a student athlete may available.  The most important high school report card is the first semester of the student athletes ninth grade.
3. Academic Scholarships are Guaranteed:  College athletic scholarships are limited and in high demand.  Academic scholarships are available at all colleges and universities.  All students can earn academic scholarships but athletic offers are determined by the evaluation of college coaches.  Again, the most important report card is high school is the first semester of the 9^th grade year.

The Michigan High School Football Coaches Association and the State of Michigan College Coaches will continue to work together and educate our student athletes and parents.  We understand the college athletic dream is a powerful motivator and all student athletes deserve the opportunity to fulfill their

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