Football Coaching for High Schools by CoachFreeb
Home of Football's Equalizer Offense and
The Handles Everything Defense
07.21.08
"Bum" Phillips
Today's SuccessQuote:
So much, he said, really wasn't about football at all,
It was about character and being better.
It could apply to anything.
Jim Taylor on Vince Lombardi
The FreebFactor:
Often been said that sport is a metaphor for life. Many of life's lessons are learned out there on the field, court, track or mat. And when things fo wrong as they sometimes will and the road you're trudging seems all uphill, that's when your true charcter is illustrated. Get your character right and you can get your performance right. You can have character or be a character. When it's late in the 4th Qtr and you have the ball on your own 25 down by 4 points, who do you want in the huddle with you? Teammates with character, or teammates who are characters? FactorThis: It's always about characte and ebing better. You are either getting better or worse. There is no staying the same; Green and growing or ripe and rotting. Your choice. Which do you choose?
By Jeff Heisler
"You're a halfback." I looked over my shoulder at the empty field behind me. "Me?" I asked, pointing to my chest. "Yes," the coach said again. "You're a halfback. Yep, no doubt about it." The coach's name was Super Roy. Someone told me his real name once, but it never stuck. In my mind he'll always be Super Roy - football coach, mentor, philosopher and role model. He was the man who made a halfback out of a scrawny, scared little fellow on his first day of pony league practice. He was the man who shaped my life.
When I got to practice that day I was a small kid with little athletic experience or skill. I wondered if I belonged there at all. When I left I was the team's halfback, and I wondered what Super Roy had seen in me that I didn't see in myself. "Are you sure I'm a halfback?" I asked him the next day. "Let me see," he said, standing back to have a good glance at me. "Yep. You're a halfback. Might as well get used to it." "Okay," I said, puzzled but beginning to accept the idea, strange as it seemed. Later that day we started running plays. Time after time the quarterback put the ball right in my hands. Me, the nerdy fellow who had to be reminded how many points a touchdown was worth. I expected to go all season without touching the ball. I expected to be a bench warmer, and now the ball was in my hands - literally.
Super Roy had a routine he did every day. As practice wound down he would pick one of the players to step forward. The player had to recite a quote Super Roy had given him the day before. It was a very important moment in practice. No one wanted to forget his quote in front of the whole team. After practice was over one day, Super Roy summoned me. "Your turn tomorrow," he said. "Ready for your quote?" "Okay," I said, straining in deep concentration. "I'm ready." "Well, here it is: 'It's not the size of the man you play, it's how you play the man.' Got it?"
"Yes, Coach." Super Roy winked at me and gave me a pat on the shoulder. The next day my mind played like a broken record. "It's not the size of the man you play, it's how you play the man." I repeated it to myself in the morning while I waited for the bus. I wrote it down time and time again during breaks in school, and all during practice I mumbled the quote to myself after each hit, just to be sure it hadn't been knocked out of my head.
When the time came I stepped forward proudly. "It's not the size of the man you play," I told my teammates, "it's how you play the man." Super Roy gave me another smile and a wink. I remembered my quote - I always will.
Years later I came to understand the genius of Super Roy's methods. He was the kind of coach who brought out the greatness in his players. He was a coach who understood what sports can do to shape character. That year a scrawny little kid learned to believe in himself, to learn there is no problem so big he can't handle. It was a lesson that shaped my life.
Long after my pony league days were over I became a teacher at a school for troubled boys. Super Roy's lessons were never far from my mind, and I borrowed from him freely. Every day there was a new quote for a young man to remember, a quote made just for him. And I always looked for the good in my students that they never saw in themselves.
There was a young man in my class who had a gifted mind and a superb voice for public speaking. One day he gave a great answer to a question I'd posed to the class. "Good point, Mr. President," I told him. After class he stopped me in the hallway. "Mr. Heisler, why did you call me Mr. President?" "Because you are a president. It's just a matter of time. Might as well get used to it."
I gave him a wink and a pat on the shoulder. Super
Roy would have been proud.
One of the things that we do in Our Be An 11 Class is to hand out a "Daily Dose" of things that cross my computer desktop that we feel would be beneficl to the kids. This has grown out of our sharing 'Cken Soup for the Soul' stories with the kids in the past. These DailyDoses now have more in them than just Chicken Soup Stories so we call them DailyDoses: We will try to post up a DailyDose each school day and perhaps you could use it with your kids.
1DailyDose.html
Got an email from a coach/friend in VA: They are just starting up their football paorgram. Last eyar was their first varsity year for the program and they played with no Seniors. Last year he lost to a team 30-0. This year he beat them 26 - 0 after a complete year of training with BFS. The losing school's Athletic Director called the following Monday to talk about scheduling their own BFS Clinic!
Schools that have had BFS Clinics average two or more football wins, three or more basketball wins, three more baseball and softball wins, 20 percent more victories in all athletic programs, and generally reduce injuries by half. Many go on to win their State Championship! BFS helps accomplish this by getting all athletes, both girls and boys, and coaches from every sport on the same page. The goal is to unify all sports under one total strength program.
Bigger Faster Strong, Inc., currently has a staff of 50 clinicians who put on athletic-training clinics in every state. Every year over 300 schools sponsor a BFS Clinic. Dr. Greg Shepard, BFS Founder & CEO, started doing clinics back in 1976. Even today, BFS Clinics remain the backbone of the company.
A clinic can be broken down into three basic parts: an instructional section, a motivational section and a hands-on section. Hands-on workshops put everything together. In these workshops perfect lifting and spotting techniques are taught for every lift. Special BFS training equipment is brought in to help facilitate learning.
BFS Clinics have proven time and time again to give the absolute winner's edge! Call to schedule a BFS event and give your athletic programs a championship start to their seasons.
On a scale of one to ten: In All that you do . . . Be An 11!
CoachFreeb - Cell 503.312.2138 Toll Free: 888.271.1926 - (Remember Toll Free rings at the house and we will be traveling on the above dates - the cell is your best bet)
Roger Freeborn, BFS Certification Clinic Director, _coachfreeb@bfsmail.com_ (mailto:coachfreeb@bfsmail.com) _coachfreeb@aol.com_ (mailto:coachfreeb@aol.com)
Gal 6:9
These are the BFS Program that we offer to schools to help them reach their goals. We can set up one of these programs for your school when we get close by on one of the above trips that are coming up this spring. This is an opportunity to schedule one of these proven programs for your school at a special reduced price.
When opponents cannot predict what you will do, they cannot act against you with inevitable effect; and when they realize they cannot predict what you will do, they have to be more watchful without knowing quite what they are watching for, thus exhausting the energy of attention and progressively diluting its effectiveness.
This leads naturally into the offensive aspect of unpredictability; enemies who cannot tell when or where you might act are thereby prevented from preparing a sure defense. Their attention is thus necessarily spread more thinly, and their mental energy naturally wanes on account of the added burden. The buildup of constantly mounting anxiety accelerates this process, and aggressively unpredictable behavior that is fundamentally intended to increase tension succeeds doubly in its function by the added tension inherent in futile reactions to misdirection. The Lost Art of War-SunTzu II
The point is not to go head-to-head with the defense, but to toy with the defenders and trick them into overextending themselves. that means thinking and moving in unison as a group and being acutely aware, at any given moment, of what's happening on the floor. Executed properly, the system is virtually unstoppable because there are no set plays and the defense can't predict what's going to happen next. If the defense tries to prevent one move, the players will adjust instinctively and start another series of cuts and passes that often lead to a better shot.
If the players are going to learn the offense, they would have to have the confidence to make decisions on their own. That would never happen if they were constantly searching for direction from me. I wanted them to disconnect themselves from me, so they could connect with their teammates, and the game.
The strength of the offense is based on the Taoist principle of yielding to an opponent's force in order to render him powerless. The idea is not to wilt or act dishonorably in the face of overwhelming force, but to be savvy enough to use the enemy's own power against him. If you look hard enough, you'll find his weaknesses. Bottom line: there's no need to overpower when you can outsmart. -Phil Jackson, Sacred Hoops
To obtain the best quality DVD, the recommendation is to have no more than 60 minutes recorded on one DVD. Therefore we have the EQualizer Offense on 2 DVDs broken down AKA the chapters you see above. These DVDs will play in most newer DVD regular players and of course in your computer's DVD drive. The offense on these DVDs concentrates on the offense from the last 2-3 years and therefore differs from that of the VHS EQualizer tape which featured play from years 2000 and before. The Quality of the DVDs is much better than that of the VHS tape as our equipment has improved and will conitnue to improve with the addition of a digital video camera this fall.
At present we are working on completing Defensive DVDs. These Will be much superior to the VHS defensive video we have had in the past. Right now we will be including defensive chapters on Defense, Defending the T Teams; Defensing the Double Wing; and Nickel Defense. These defensive videos will be further broken down into defending the middle, off tackle, outside and against the pass. The Defensive DVDs will be available in early August.
The DVDs are designed to be a companion/illustration of the basic offense that is written up in the EQualizer Playbook.
Each DVD is priced at $15 plus postage and handling. If you are using any part of the EQualizer Offense, you will want to have these DVDs before practice starts. They are a great coaching/instructional tool.
Estacada_ (http://www.weather.com/weather/local/97023">Estacada) Weather Forecast, OR (97023)
2004 RangerUpdates
Be An 11 Class is an attitude, motivation, goal setting, visualization class taught by Coach Freeborn that has a profound impact on the student/athletes in the class. During the Clinic Coach Freeborn will lay out the FUNdaMENTALS of the class which you can easily work into your program for a more positive attitude and higher motivation for the players - and coaches
This class is the prototype Be An 11 Class stressing attitude, motivation, goal setting and teamwork.
For all of you who keep asking about our everyday, 5 days a week routine in the weigthroom, you will find a copy of it at the above link.
CoachFreeb goes online to share Football Fax via cyberspace.
The information on these links comes from over 30 years of coaching High School football. Much of what Football Coaches know and do has been gathered from others in the profession.With the advent of the internet we have the opportunity to share information instantly. Our goal is that you will be able to add some useful information to your coaching expertise as we swap the things that we do best.
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