Coach ,

A coach whom I respect greatly is Larry Kindbom, who stepped back as the long-time Washington University head coach to stay in the game and coach defensive backs.

His first experiences as a coach came under the legendary Woody Hayes and he’s had other great mentors along the way.

Coach Kindom encapsulates his philosophy on developing players in a famous quote from Sun Tzu, 

“Victorious warriors win first then go to war. While defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.”

He is a big believer in fundamentals and he makes them a priority. To best serve his players he starts from scratch every year, going back to the beginning and teaching the basics.

When I Google “football drills” it returns results that share more drills than I would ever be able to use over the course of a season. Are there good drills on the list? Probably, but there’s an issue.

It’s a trend I have noticed. 

We have an abundance of drills that are not taught in context and that’s a problem. We have limited time on the practice field.  

As Coach Kindbom says, the drills we teach must show up on game film. That means that they should be tied into teaching our specific schemes and the techniques that make those schemes successful.

A drill may look cool or fun for the kids, but if it is not making them move, decide, and react within the scenarios they will face within a play within a game, then the practice time it is taking is up is not being maximized.

He has developed a checklist of things that he makes sure he teaches for his position.

So much of the game has already been decided by how you practice. The things that show up on game day are usually the things that you have practiced.

Why do you run the drills that you run?

Coach Kindbom explains the answers to that question in this video (click on image):

Video: Win first then go to war

Coach reminds us before you get into teaching your players on the field this year, it would be a valuable use of your time to list your drills as well as the concept and technique that it teaches within your schemes.

The exercise may point out some holes in your teaching of techniques that your players need that are not being taught enough.

When Coach Kindbom was a young GA, Woody Hayes told him that “your players will do what you taught them.”  The only thing that he is going to do is what you have allowed him to do.

If you want to see the value of a drill for yourself and be able to show the value of the drill and the time you spend on it with your players, putting together some playlists of how your drills show up on game day will provide you a beneficial tool for teaching.

As Google showed me, there are plenty of drills out there. Our task as coaches is to find and create the ones that teach our players to win in practice, and then they can go out and win games.

Always be growing!

Coach Grabowski