Letter from AFM - Last Call for Fall Prep

With the school year coming to a close, the next major event on the football calendar will be the start of pre-season practice. Every coach would likely agree that the weeks leading up to the season opener are critical times for conditioning, learning the playbook and fine-tuning offensive and defensive units.
  

  For many coaches, putting together a plan for pre-season practice is a no-brainer. If they’ve been successful in recent years, especially in their opening few games, there would appear to be little reason to tinker with what’s been working.
  

  But for coaches whose teams have struggled early in the season or for new head coaches that are now developing a pre-season practice plan for the first time, designing a daily schedule that ensures peak performance on all levels for the opening game can be a real challenge.
 

   With that in mind, we recently turned to Brent Steuerwald of Shenendehowa High School in Clifton Park, New York. As you will recall from April’s AFM, Coach Steuerwald has led the Plainsmen for 43 years and won 307 games in the process. He was also this year’s recipient of the prestigious Power of Influence Award from the AFCA. Who better to share his guidelines for designing an effective pre-season practice program than a coach who is about to do it for the 44th time?
  

  In addition to his observations about pre-season practice and his rules for putting together a great practice plan, Coach Steuerwald is graciously providing AFM readers with something we’ve never before offered. On AmericanFootballMonthly.com, subscribers will be able to download printable versions of Shenendehowa’s detailed minute-by-minute plans for all 26 practice sessions leading up to their season opener. 

    As a follow up to the detailed workout charts for the 8-week summer strength and conditioning program that we made available online last month, we think that Coach Steuerwald’s practice plan schedules are a valuable asset for a coach who needs to improve his team’s pre-season preparation. We’d like to hear from you if you plan on using either of these downloads in your program. If you’d like to see more downloads available on AmericanFootballMonthly.com, please let us know that as well.

    Also in this issue, we’ve included two additional articles that can help make your summer productive. For strength and conditioning, we’re giving you another look inside a collegiate program – this time courtesy of Fairmont State’s John Marano – complete with downloadable practice charts. Plus, Coach Bryon Hamilton writes about summer workouts and provides his perspective on pre-season activities in his popular “Coach to Coach” column.
 

   We’re not finished helping you prepare for the upcoming season. In our next issue, we’ll have more features that can help you be more effective this pre-season and help your players get off to a fast start in your opening games. 

    It’s a critical time for football coaches everywhere. We hope that the resources available to you through AFM, either in the pages of the magazine or online in our archive of over 15 years of coaching articles can help you and your staff achieve all of your goals for the 2011 season. 
                           
                            John Gallup
                            Editor & Publisher