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AFM Magazine

AFM Magazine


Letter From the Editor

Winners, Program Builders and Recruiting Options
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“Everyone loves a winner.”

Every coach knows the value and impact of winning football games. Depending on your level of coaching, it means some combination of more job security, more job opportunities more money, better recruits and more community support.

For most coaches, at least the ones I’ve had the good fortune to speak with, the term “football philosophies” is a slight misnomer. It’s more like “life philosophies applied to coaching the game of football.”

As you’ll see in this issue, it’s a great approach to the game, especially when dealing with younger players. It transcends so many of the other factors teams face, such as the quality of facilities, fundraising concerns, booster support and preparing players for the next stage of their lives, whether or not the future involves playing football.

For high school players with the skills to play in college, the recruiting process is critically important for a few reasons. First, to ensure the player arrives at a situation where he is most comfortable and best able to maximize his skill level while preparing for either professional football or life after football.

College coaches are pounding the pavement as much as possible to find the best players, but they know they need the help of high school coaches. Recruiters we spoke to told us they rely on the integrity of the information they receive from high school coaches and – most importantly – the more high school coaches can do to make college coaches and recruiters aware of their skilled players, the better.

There are caveats, of course. The first is to understand where the player fits best. Just because a program is a Division II school doesn’t mean the linemen are undersized. Your star quarterback might be viewed as a possible star wide receiver by a Division I-A recruiter, but a Division III school may let him quarterback. Communicate with your players so they know their options and can make the decision that best aligns with their goals and dreams.

For high school programs, we talk about the importance of community support. To a man, every high school head coach we spoke to mentioned the importance of community support.

How it manifests itself is an entirely different story. Some schools can raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for the football team, and it shows in the quality of equipment and facilities those schools have. They’re very proud of their efforts – and rightly so.

But what those schools, and those boosters, have in common with the schools who can’t secure those kinds of funds is a commitment to the athletes as both players and members of the community.

We looked at two distinctly different programs, one in a small town in New Mexico, the other in Miami, Fla. We thought the one thing they had in common was winning. But when we talked about community support, and the players’ goals, ambitions and the coach’s expectations for the program, we found they were more alike than we thought.

The point is, there are many paths to winning, and we talk about a lot of them in this issue. Each of those paths, however, rely on the coaching staff’s integrity, the players’ commitment, and the community’s support - not just on game night, but all of the time.

Pull together those three things, and you may not win every week, but you’ll have a foundation for success and a foundation for future growth. I hope this issue helps.


Sincerely,

Scott Kraft
Managing Editor






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