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Have enough help for the Youth Football Tryouts
Please make sure that your youth football tryouts are organized and run smooth. There's nothing worse than an unorganized, time wasting tryout for parents to see. The parents will be standing on the side watching your every move. This will be the first impression for many of the parents, so please be organized. It is imperative that you have enough help for every single drill, station and event that you plan to use during the youth football tryouts. Make sure you have the entire tryout planned ahead on a schedule and follow that schedule to a tee. You can make adjustments for the next day but stick to the schedule you have set for the day. I write out the entire plan and give copies to all of the parents and coaches that will be helping out. Please make sure they all understand what you are looking for during the evaluations. I use a stop watch for each station of the tryouts and give many water breaks in the hot July heat.
Make sure each and every station, or youth football drill, has the purpose that will help you evaluate the players. You need to make sure that each and every child gets a fair shake. This will avoid any potential parent problems complaining the tryouts were not fair. I run almost exclusive head on head drills or competitions with the winners and losers each moving to different groups. I like to use the competition in drills versus using a stop watch for many different reasons including
- Any “running time” will not be exact since the field may not be set up the same way from day to day. Also you have the issue of start and stopping the watch at the same time for each kid. When John races Joe and beats him John is faster.
- Competing Head to Head brings out the best in some kids. Others will fold under the pressure. You want to know this before the first game.
- The kids will love it.
- The parents will realize that their kid winds up in the group they belong.
I will give the complete list and details of all the things I run the first week of youth football evaluations.
I will leave on one note and that is, these are evaluations, so try to keep the coaching to a minimum. Each player should be evaluated on his skill level. Make sure all are players are instructed on the proper techniques so there is less risk of injury. Encourage all players to ask as many questions as they need to. The youth football evaluations are a very exciting time since you are getting your first look at this year’s talent.
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