September | 2016 | THE COACH HAYS

Monthly Archives: September 2016

September 13, 2016 · 7:01 PM

ROAR

Tiger Bike Night. It’s one of the highlights of our local high school football home season. Local motorcycle enthusiasts line up along the track, and, after the team walks down the line of bikes, they take a lap around the track before kickoff. It’s cool. It’s LOUD. It’s probably the closest representation of what goes on inside the head of a player at the line of scrimmage just before the ball is snapped during a game.

My favorite memory of Bike Night from the days when I still coached was the first time they ever did it. I think it was 2005 or 2006, but those details begin to fade in my aging memory. The details may fade, but the visceral feeling doesn’t (and I hope it never does.).

This Bike Night was something completely new to CCCHS. We stood outside the locker room and watched the bikes drive through the stadium gate and line up in front of the stands at the south end of Otto Unruh Stadium. There was no plan for players to interact with the bikers, so we went back into the locker room to wait for the signal for us to come out for the national anthem and player introductions.

I wish I could describe the feeling in that locker room when the riders began to rev their engines. Words will not do justice to the reaction of the body and the reaction of the fifty odd, crammed-into-a-locker room-collective-of-teenage-boys, already emotionally charged to play a football game, when they felt the roar of the bikes.
It was electric.

The player’s eyes danced as they looked to their left and right at their teammates. Tight smiles formed across the faces. Each understood what the others were feeling. The rumbling and the roar flowed through the blood spiked by the release of adrenaline. They were ready to run through the concrete walls.

Blood
Intensity
Power

Chained power in the revved engines transferred to the hearts of each and every one of us. Energy in motion. Ready to hit the opponent in the mouth with a brick. Ready to shine your shillelagh and charge onto the field. Ready to play Tiger Football the way we were supposed to play Tiger Football.

Full throttle.
Fast forward.
Balls to the wall.
Hit you like a cannon shot.
Every man, every play.

Clay Center Tiger Football. The way the game was meant to be played.

I appreciated the bike night event. The 2016 Tiger Bike Night is this Friday. I don’t know if I’ll go. I don’t know if I can feel that special ROAR again and not feel the tug on my gut that pulls unrelenting back into that world again.
That grating, tingling sense which gnaws on you like a phantom limb. Always there, yet missing. The world of competing and pushing, pulling, driving, willing over 60 kids toward a common goal each year. All this wrapped up in that visceral rumbling of dozens and dozens of bikes, each revving their engine on the most beautiful piece of real estate in the county. Our house.

Finally, if you find yourself in Otto Unruh Stadium on this Friday Night In America listening to the roar of Tiger Bike Night before the Tigers vs Goodland football game, do old Coach Hays a favor. Close your eyes and feel the ROAR. Feel it in your gut and in your chest. Close your eyes and dream of competing. Close your eyes and appreciate the community of players, coach, and fans in our little gem of a city. Then bring on the three B’s:

Bandanas
Bikers
Ball

Friday Night In America…Biker style!

Photo courtesy of the Orange & Black Pack

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Tagged as Fandom, Otto Unruh Stadium, Tiger Bike Night, Tiger Football

September 1, 2016 · 6:21 PM

#ThatSportsParent

One of the scourges of modern youth sports is out-of-line parents. The headlines are full of incidents involving overzealous parents. Odds are, each of us can pinpoint an incident of ugly parent behavior at a sports event no matter how small a town we live in. It’s threatening the very existence of youth sports and, more importantly, taking the FUN out of the game.

But when is it okay to get involved as a parent?

“So what happens when you’re the parent that yells for your own son (good but not the star) to sit so that a few of the others on the team can get some playing time because you’re up by 10 to a way lesser team? ”

Somebody I respect greatly asked me the above question a few weeks ago. It’s a tough question to answer, but I’ll give it a try. I’ll try to answer from a coach’s perspective and try to wall off my parental perspective because Lord knows, I’ve screwed up many times on that side of this issue. I’ve been there. I’ve felt the parental frustration seep its way into my competitive fire in less than positive ways.

So, here’s my personal philosophy on sports parenting and complaints.

First and foremost, a parent should be their kid’s biggest fan, not be their sports agent. There are truly legitimate situations in which a parent should intervene on behalf of their sports child. Physical, mental, or emotional abuse from either other players or from coaches should be reported immediately. In these situations, the parent needs to be the bulldog, the protector, and jump in and refuse to back down until a resolution is achieved.

But sports parents, listen up…Depth chart and playing time and play calling probably do not fall into this category of necessary parental intervention.

I’ve always felt there are three things every parent needs to do before they get involved. They are not easy to do. A parent needs patience and the ability to wall off emotion in this context.

Observe the situation from an honest viewpoint.
Be honest. This can be soooo hard, especially if you have those visions of your kid being the best thing since sliced bread. Step back and take an honest look at where your kid’s talent falls in respect to the other kids.
Allow your kid to handle the simple situations. Have them find out from the coach or other players where they sit and develop a plan to get better.

My playing time thoughts depend on the level of play. If it’s a varsity high school level of competition, I believe in playing as few, or as many, players as necessary for the situation. We want to be highly competitive at the varsity level. We also want to balance player/program development, situational skills we may need to groom for later use, and get game reps with new plays or skills.

The developmental level of competition, middle school, freshman, junior varsity is where I like to play everyone as equally as possible during a game. Sure, the goal is still to win the contest, but we need EVERYONE in the program learning how to do their job in order to achieve success as a team. The game situation is where we can identify individual or team areas for improvement while gaining experience. The future, both the near future or the far future, carries a higher priority at the developmental level than winning or losing. (The developmental level is where many parents allow the basic purpose to slip away and the emotions to pressurize.)

Finally, there is the private or club sports environment. This area has grown by leaps and bounds over the past decade. My only advice right now for parents in these situations is as follows:

If you, as a parent, are unhappy with a club situation, whether playing time, depth chart, game management or practice management, then I suggest talking with your kid about the situation. If it bothers your kid and/or the other kids on the team, then schedule a meeting with the coach.

Schedule this meeting at a neutral emotion time (NOT before, after, or during a game, a practice, or in a public setting.). Meet with the goal being to solve the problem, not create new problems.

If you are unhappy with the outcomes of this meeting, I suggest moving to a new situation for the next season.

If you are unhappy seek a viable alternative or take advantage of alternative solutions that are presented to you. Don’t spread your misery. Sports are too much fun to be blanketed in this negativity.

Sports can teach kids a lot about life. Allow them to learn. Allow them to develop. Allow them to understand being part of the whole is better than trying to be the whole part.

Give them the opportunity.