Another fun season

Today our season came to a close, with our final game against a very strong Slinger team that finished 7-1. We put up a good fight, but in the end we made too many mistakes (such as fumbling in our own end zone, leading to an easy Slinger TD).

After the game, the coaches talked to the kids about our entire season. I was hoping to talk to each of them individually over the past week, but really didn't get a chance to with the bad weather causing many kids to miss practice, then we had the pizza party, etc.

We told them that we were very proud to be their coaches and that we were very thankful that they gave us their best efforts for the entire year. I had an absolute blast coaching this team. It has a lot of talent, and with a little bit more experience, I think they will turn out to be a fantastic football team down the road.

I urged all of the kids to stick with football in the coming years. It is not uncommon for young teams, especially at Hartford since this was our first season with a fifth grade team, to struggle. They're not used to the intensity, they're not used to the contact, and it is a lot different than the fun football games they may play at recess.

At the 6th grade level, my philosophy (and I am certainly not the only one) is that fundamentals and fun should take priority over winning. We always have an eye on the big picture. We do a number of things that other 6th grade teams don't do, such as vary our snap count heavily and running a fairly complex playbook. At this level, it is easy to ask yourself, "why would you vary the snap count when sixth graders may have a difficult time remembering it?" or "if a certain play works really well, why don't you just keep doing it over and over and over?" The answer is simple: the goal is to teach fundamentals. If the goal at 6th grade was to win, as it would be at the high school, college, or professional level, we would do things differently. But it isn't.

A great example is this year's 8th grade teams. Mark O. and I coached many of those kids in sixth grade just a few years ago, and we both struggled. My team went 0-8 that season. But now the 8th grade teams have shown great improvement, and with the help of some excellent coaching as they moved up, they were able to refine their skills and have had much better seasons.

A reminder to parents that the banquet is on November 11, 2009. Details should be on the website.

A special thanks to all of my fellow coaches, the parents, and the many volunteers that helped make this season so fun. It was truly a great time, and while I am sad to see it end, I look forward to seeing the kids develop as football players (and as people) over the next few years.

Thank you, and I'll see you at the banquet!

Notes from Tuesday's practice, notice re: Thursday

Yesterday's practice involved some drills that we typically don't do. Since the weather was so bad on Monday, we did a little bit of offense during Tuesday's practice. Then we decided to have a little end-of-the-season fun and did an obstacle course and the infamous "linemen challenge."

Note to parents: We will be practicing on Thursday as usual. However, the second part of practice will be a pizza party courtesy of the coaches to reward the kids for giving us their all. At the present time it will be in the shed; however, it is possible that we get a room in the high school. I will try to get notice out if it moves. Either way, plan to drop off and pick up your son at the usual location; if we have the party in the high school, I will make sure they come to find you at the end of practice (which will be close to 6:15-6:30 since it gets so dark).

Thanks!

Game at Slinger; more bad weather

More bad weather tonight. The fields were in pretty bad shape, so I took the team into the shed for some more chalk talk. We talked about some strategy and did some Xs and Os on the whiteboard.

The final game of the season will be at Slinger at noon on Saturday. It's unfortunate that we have yet another away game, but as far as away games go, we could do worse than a trip to Slinger.

Practice tomorrow as scheduled.

Be an 11

Coach Rob Whitemore has very kindly placed information on the "Be an 11" seminar on the website. The seminar is in November. The website indicates that coaches were to distribute flyers and information on this after the games on Saturday.

Sadly, with all of the events surrounding our exciting game, the flyers are currently sitting in the same place they were this morning...in the back seat of my car. I'll make sure to bring that information to practice on Monday.

Also, if your son does not have his pictures yet, please have him remind me to give them the pictures after practice on Monday. There are still one or two players who have not picked up picutres.

6-6

Another tie for 6th grade orange, this time a 6-6 tie against Oshkosh West. An all-around solid effort by the players today. We jumped out to a 6-0 lead, but unfortunately gave up a long touchdown run in the 4th quarter and weren't able to score again.

The thing I liked most about this game is that we had a very specific defensive game plan, and our players executed it very well for the most part. They were clearly paying attention in practice this week, and most of our mistakes today were physical and not mental. Coaches can always live with physical mistakes, it's the mental ones that are difficult to cope with.

The thing I think we need to work on is, once again, playing for a full 4 quarters. We seem to show up for certain portions of a game, and then look like a different team in others. While today was a very strong effort, just a little bit extra in the 4th quarter would have led to a victory.

Final week of practice starts this week. Practice goes from 4:45PM-6:30PM, but in reality, we may have to stop even before 6:30 given the light. I am making a point this week to meet with each player individually to talk to them about their season, how they played, what I think they can do to improve, what I think they do well, and so on.

See you Monday.

Chalk talk

Today was a miserable day of weather for a practice, and we were short a lot of players. So we decided to spend most of practice in the shed to review some concepts that we have been discussing in preparation for this week's game.

The game is at Oshkosh West at noon. The map is on the website, as usual. Warmups to start at 11:00AM.

Please make sure your son dresses for the weather, as current weather reports have Saturday being pretty miserable also.

See you then!

Good effort on Saturday, good Monday practice

We lost another tough one on Saturday unfortunately, but I thought that the effort was very good against a very strong Brookfield team that has only lost one game. We were able to execute certain plays with some success, and we were also missing a lot of players due to illness or other factors. The final score was misleading.

However, we did fail to punch the ball in in four tries from the five yard line, and we certainly wish we could have scored. The closer you get to the end zone, the more effort and heart play a role as opposed to technique and strategy.

We got a lot of our players back today, and had a real good Monday practice.

Our game this coming Saturday will be away at Oshkosh West, time is yet to be confirmed. I will let you know ASAP (expect it to be about the same time all of our games have been, 10:30 or noon).

Look forward to Tuesday's defensive night!

More bad weather

Tonight's pre-game practice was tough due to another day of cold and rain. We did our normal run-through of offense, defense, and special teams.

A few notes for parents:

1. Please make sure your son is dressed for the weather. We had some kids tonight that were very cold. Some did not even have a long-sleeve shirt on. The coaches can do our best, but there's only so much we can do once the players have arrived to help with these situations. Sometimes there's only so much you can do, but we reminded the players in practice tonight to dress for the weather.

2. Saturday's game is at Brookfield Central. The map is on the website, as usual. Please note that this will be the first (and likely only) opportunity for the kids to play on a FieldTurf field, which is always a fun experience. However, there are special rules to protect the surface, particularly involving cleats. We told the players to clean their cleats before they arrive on Saturday.

3. It's that time of year where we have to start ending practice close to 6:30PM, and so next week practice will go from 4:45PM to 6:30PM. There just isn't enough light anymore.

4. If your son is not going to be at a practice or a game, please make sure that you either call or e-mail me to let me know. Most of you have been very good with this, but this week we have had numerous absences that were unexpected. I know many kids get sick at this time of year, especially given the weather, but please let us know. Also, please do not rely on your son to simply tell a coach, as they often forget.

5. I still have some pictures for players that were not at practice on Tuesday. If you ordered pictures but have not yet received them, please remind your son at Monday's practice to pick them up from me.

Any questions, please feel free to e-mail or call. Thanks, and we'll see you Saturday!

Team effort

Tonight's practice was a really enjoyable team effort. We were short numerous players due to school functions/camps and other things, so instead of spending a lot of time on individual positions where we would have been very short at certain positions, we worked as a group the entire practice.

We also had pictures come in today. If your son was not able to be at practice today, please remind him to get his pictures after Thursday's practice.

Monday practice

Today was a pretty good practice, although we had a few bumps and bruises and were short a few players by the end of it. But we ran and blocked hard, had a solid effort during conditioning, and bounced back from some of the mistakes that we made.

I also reminded the players that it is important to make sure that they are taking care of themselves at home, especially during this time of year. I was hearing some coughs and sniffles, and I told them to make sure they get enough sleep and drink plenty of water.

Tomorrow will be a defensive night, and we'll have to continue to work on angles and tackling.

Tough one

Another tough one for 6th grade Orange today. We were playing a team that I felt we could/should have beaten, but we made a lot of mistakes and were not physical enough.

We seemed to have some issues with personnel groups today - situations where we had too few players on the field, or too many. We had a few kids that were not with us today, which had us juggling the groups, and we didn't handle it well. We as coaches need to do a better job of preparing the players so that they know what groups are in, and the players need to make sure that they pay attention on the sidelines so that they know which groups are in.

We also have to stop playing good football for just one, two, or three quarters, and start playing a full game. We nearly tied the game today at 7-6 with a big touchdown run, but then we let it get out of control in the 4th quarter. If we ever play our best for an entire game, I think the score will take care of itself.

Back to work on Monday....enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Pregame practice

Thursday's practice was a little bit easier to handle, weather-wise. The ground was still pretty soft, but there weren't puddles and mud all over the place like there was on Tuesday.

Fortunately, the effort today was also sharper in all three phases, offense/defense/special teams. Hopefully it carries over into Saturday.

Saturday's game is at Wauwatosa West at noon, warmups start at 11:00AM sharp. Hopefully we can continue to build on the exciting finish from last week.

Sloppy

Today was a pretty sloppy practice, both literally and figuratively.

The rain all day made the fields pretty awful (I don't envy those of you who did the laundry this evening). But football teams have to adjust to the elements - I don't think they'll be building any domes for Hartford 6th grade football anytime soon - and we made way too many mental mistakes tonight.

On a positive note, the enthusiasm is definitely there, and we still have Thursday's practice to prepare for Saturday's game.

See you Thursday.

Exciting finish

Oddly enough, we began today's game with the same record as our opponent. When the game is over, we still had the same record.

We finished today with a 14-14 tie after a very exciting finish. Down 14-6 with about two minutes to go and all our timeouts, our defense held firm and forced a turnover on downs. With about a minute to go, we broke a big run for a touchdown. Just as importantly, we kicked a very clutch extra point (worth 2 in 6th grade), which is extremely hard to do at this level. The score was tied 14-14. We even got the ball back and had a chance to get a victory, but it didn't work out.

Of course, I would have preferred that we played better in the beginning of the game so that we could get a victory. But I was proud of our players for not giving up, and I think they learned a valuable lesson today.

Some things we'll have to work on include our mental mistakes. We had way too many penalties today and we turned the ball over.

We'll try to fix those mistakes and be ready next week.

Nice tune-up

Today's pregame practice went pretty well, and I think all of the players are getting comfortable with what we are doing. The playbook probably isn't going to get a lot bigger - although we will always tinker - and there seems to be less thinking and more reacting, which is always a positive sign.

Saturday's game is at home (Town Hall) at 10:30AM, warmups start 9:30AM sharp. We recommend arriving by 9:15.

We had a couple of volunteers to be water boys for tomorrow night's varsity game...if there are any questions in this regard, feel free to contact me.

Thank you, and we'll see you Saturday.