The 5th Down: Dealing with an Unsupportive Administration

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Marcus George, Head Coach
Ansbach High School
Dodds, Germany

“Our main goal when we go to a new school or welcome a new administrator is to weave ourselves tightly with the aims and goals of the staff and administration. It is important to let the staff know that you support them and to hear what the administrator is saying. Many times, we don't initially hear what we want to hear from a new administrator but the tune usually changes when they realize that our plan to make the school a better place includes everyone. Few people can affect the atmosphere of a school like a coach can.”

Ken Ellis, Defensive Coordinator,
Woodburn High School (OR)

“I recently took the job of Assistant Head Coach/Defensive Coordinator at a school that I had coached at five years ago. It is a very good soccer school in a Latino community and the school has not won a football game in the past five years as well.

“With this being a soccer school and community, the school has not been too excited about football over the last few years. I am very excited about the possibilities here, though. One of the first goals we are trying is to instill confidence in the players and coaching staff and change the attitude of the community, both inside and outside of the school. When teams are not used to winning, they have a habit of being very complacent, and, again, with this being a soccer school and community, obviously football takes a back seat with the staff and fans.

“We are trying to teach the players and the administration about the little successes first and take everything, ‘one step at a time.’ Instead of worrying about losing, we just want to prepare the players to win the next game, prepare for being successful in the classroom, prepare to be successful as young men, and making these things the most important focus. When talking to people in the school and in the community we stress how hard we are working to get to these next steps.

“What we are finding is more support from the administration because the student athletes are showing great improvement in the classroom, having more confidence in themselves, getting some much needed respect from the school and community, and are becoming more disciplined on the field in practice. We are hoping that this will produce some wins this year on the playing field as well.”

Victor Roy, Assistant Coach,
Kingsman High School (NM)

“I was just thinking about this. The only way I can deal with it is to first surround myself with good coaches and, secondly, just be as humble as I can be.”

Name Withheld By Request

“We have found a good way to deal with the administration is invite them to be part of the team. Inviting the building principal to come and speak to the team prior to a turnout was a good one. Give the principal the “theme of the week” and ask him/her to speak to the theme. Two good themes we used were “Sportsmanship” and “Classroom Behavior.” We asked the principal to give the kids what their perception was of the theme and let the kids know what it meant to them or what type of behavior was acceptable. One thing we found after a couple of sessions was to give the speaker a time line and not to go over it. Kids do not want to sit for a long time but we felt it taught them both courtesy and to pay attention.

“And to follow up on this, we invited the principal to be with us during pre game and also at halftime. This really won over the principal. She had no idea of what went on at halftime. What she observed was good teaching and coaching adjustments and to her wonder the kids paid attention to what was going on.

“Finally, we made sure our captains invited the principal to attend our awards banquet and speak on her perceptions on our team. This really impressed the parents. Most of the time the kids see the principal in a negative light. A couple of our plans worked pretty well and we still continue the tradition.

“As the saying goes, ‘with tradition comes responsibility” and some of our teachers found out about these events and several of them asked to be included. What we now do is ask the kids who are there three toughest teachers. Before inviting them we make sure and define ‘toughest’ to the kids. Invite them to do the same thing. This has become tradition also.

“Lastly, at the pep assembly, have the principal or one of the teachers introduce the starting line-up. This has worked very well. As a sidebar, some of our English teachers are great people and one lady asked one of our players what certain positions meant. For example, what is a linebacker and what does he do or what does a halfback do?

“This kind of summarizes what we have done and are doing.”

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