THE SEASON IS OVER - WHAT IS YOUR DAY 1 SYSTEM W/ YOUR NEXT TEAM?

The 2020 season is over. Christmas break is done and we have to get back to the 'real world' and do what all coaches must do...start again.

My next few blogs will describe how we systematically start anew. In this blog, I will discuss our structure of how we select battalion captains and how they chose their squads.

This morning we met as a staff and paired up coaches for each set to lead a battalion. Once we had our coaches grouped, we began to draft the captains for each unit. Each pair of coaches chose two captains (in reverse, 'snake' type fashion).

When our players arrived, we met as a team and explained to them we would now have our coaches and captains draft their teams. I explained to them, "draft for character, pick guys who will be on time, in our workout gear, and not be issues for teachers. Any issues your battalion has, you will also be held accountable for being a captain."

Once 80% of the players are selected, I allow the remaining athletes ('free agents') to pick a battalion where they feel they can succeed and make it through the next couple of months of tough off-season workouts.

After the battalions are set, the coaches and captains go into our sub-varsity locker room (no one uses the varsity locker room at this time), and each group is given a specific area of lockers. The captains are informed they are in charge of this part of the locker room. They must be the last one out each day to ensure their area is spotless.

The groups must also come up with a name for their battalion. The name must relate with our core values/creed. We strongly believe in the power of words here in Goonville!

Today our guys created these battalion names:

'OTF' - Only The Fam

ELITE GOONS

THE GOONS OF WALL STREET

GIT SOME

GRITTY GOONS

TTP - Trust The Process

The last thing we did was create a communication group for each battalion (we use WhatsApp). All athletes will be able to remind each other of any communication, our standard, etc., in a format they love - text. Coaches are also a part of this texting group.

Tomorrow we will begin testing like 99% of the coaches reading this, but today we established our culture and our standard. Our 2021 team will be led, held accountable, and 'policed' by players as well as coaches.

"Bad teams no one leads. Average teams the coaches lead. But, ELITE teams the players lead." P.J. Fleck - Head Football Coach - University of Minnesota