I picked up this series on Netflx over the weekend and its an amazing watch.
It follows the TYFA (Texas Youth Football Association) which is the ultra competitive level of kids football in Texas.
This show follows multiple teams and their coaches and parents through a season..
The first season focused on what they called the rookie league which is the 8 to 11 year olds, the second follows the 11 to I think 13 year olds.
There was some interesting fallout from the first season as two coaches were suspended after one of them had his kids dropping 5 bombs during team chants. The other was far more series as the coach was telling his kids to ear hole and hurt other kids.
The second season is more focused on the head injuries aspect of youth football, including one single mother who's devastated as one child suffered a devestating concussion that's lead to seizures and the other brother had a fairly severe hit that ended up sending him to the hospital.
When I watch the coaches, theres some good and bad, but there's a lot of personality and conflict and you see a old school approach to the game where practices are all full speed full contact, and they can't seem to get the heads up message taught.
Its an odd mix where no one looks especially like a consistently good coach. I have to wonder how the certification in Texas is compared to up here where its very tough.
Anyways, I think its a really great watch and a cautionary tale for anyone that coaches competitive youth sports.
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Last edited by CaptainCrunch; 01-04-2016 at 08:36 AM.
ok, I'm probably going to take heat for saying its a great watch, but it is a good watch for any coaches or aspiring coaches out there to avoid the traps that some of these coaches fall into when they put the game and how they were taught to play above the kids.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
I went to my nephew's football practice 2 years ago, he was 8.
I couldn't believe of it went.
The technical aspect of tackling was frighteningly absent.
My nephew didn't have his mask grabbed but, I saw plenty of other kids have their masks grabbed.
My bro-in-law pulled him out half way through the season for both safety and "you guys are ####ing idiots" reasons.
I coached soccer so it was a bit different, but do those coaches have any training whatsoever? How can they get away with telling kids to hit players in the head or just 'play through the pain?'
Is there no oversight?
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I coached soccer so it was a bit different, but do those coaches have any training whatsoever? How can they get away with telling kids to hit players in the head or just 'play through the pain?'
Is there no oversight?
I only know the fringe aspects of this, but it seems in the Football that my nephew was playing was run more like Spring Hockey (but with a league). Coaches started teams and recruited, and kids would follow coaches that the parents thought were good/get their kids a scholarship.
I coach rugby, and there is a huge focus on the technical aspects of contact/tackling. The practice I witnessed was devoid of all those points.
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^^I played football in the area that sylvan lake is involved in and we were taught the techniques to properly tackle and were reamed out if we did something incorrectly that could hurt us.
I could see how this could happen in Texas though.
I coached soccer so it was a bit different, but do those coaches have any training whatsoever? How can they get away with telling kids to hit players in the head or just 'play through the pain?'
Is there no oversight?
At the end of the first season, they had a wrap up show that really is a must watch for any parents that have kids playing competitive sports. If you skip the rest of the show and watch that its well worth it.
Two of the coaches absolutely got raked over the coals as did the president of TYFA.
They talked about certification of coaches, but didn't go into details, but the league was just introducing heads up tackling training.
There was little over sight of the coaches, in fact the two suspensions to the head coach of the Broncos and the Head Coach of the Colts came directly from the shows release, so something positive happened there.
I would argue that the certification is harder elsewhere, the certification for football coaches isn't easier and is getting harder all the time now as they've made it mandatory for coaches to have safe contact training by 2017 but head coaches and coordinators have to have it this year.
It was funny, that the Outlaws who won the State Championship in season 1 with the 8 year olds had three coaches, they decided to bring in position coaches in year 2 and all hell broke loose on the sidelines.
A big part of season 2 and to an extent season one was the conduct of the parents. We saw a brawl nearly break out between the Outlaw coaches and a parent of a Colt. In season 2 there have already been two near incidences with fired up parents.
I mean it was funny to watch the amount of hitting that was happening in the practices, I know now that for the most part during practices we're not tackling to the ground, but we make sure to teach hitting technique.
But things like the Pit and King of the Hill which used to be football standards are pretty much dead now.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
So my wife and I binge watched the entire first two seasons this weekend. I played a lot of competitive sports growing up, and this show just captivated me for some reason. Aspects of the coaching I agree with and think it's desperately missing in today's youth, but others had my jaw dropping and questioning if I would ever let my own children play football (which I've always said I would).
They really cleaned their act up between season 1 and season 2. At least in front of the cameras anyways. Nowhere near as intense. Apparently season 3 is starting to air next week on Esquire. Really wish we had that channel so I could tune in.
There were clearly some changes after the first season, but we also have to realize that these weren't the same age groups as season one, so they were fuller along in their development as players.
In terms of changes
The head coach for the Colts who left at the end of the year to go to the Outlaws, is technically a good coach and he found a balance towards the end of the year in terms of authority versus yelling. I think he also realized that he was the cause of a lot of injuries.
The outlaws won in spite of their coach, I think coach to kid the head coach was very good, but he was a pretty terrible manager of the other coaches. but that team won because they were just a talented group of kids that had been developed well.
The Bronco's really over compensated, they got rid of the coach from year one who was a brutally bad coach, but they bought in a coach that was good technically but didn't demand accountability from the players, especially in practice.
The guy that ran the spartans who had a girl on their team made a big adjustment mid season in how he dealt with the players, and it was a good change.
The coach for the other team the one that banned the family, was horrible in every aspect, even his pre game speeches were completely random and you could see the kids checking out.
I still cringe at a lot of things that they do.
Every team ran the blind pit, and that drill is just terrible, you can see that either the coaches weren't teaching the heads up technique or the kids just didn't get that, all I heard over and over again was the helmet to helmet sound, and there was too much of coaches not listening to the kids afterwards, and telling them to basically rub dirt on it.
The outlaws and Colts ran these major playbooks, you could see it in the highlight films that they showed of the games. The Colts coach even bragged about running a college offensive set on offense. That's really the easiest way to leave kids behind.
When I coached at Bantam this year, I loved our playbook from a logic standpoint, but at times I looked at the fact that we had 60 to 80 play calls in it and was worried about that. But we had a smart coach in terms of how the plays were called and realistically in the games we ran maybe 5 to 8 of those plays in total.
I would really like to see them continue this series but moving up to the next level which would be bantom 12-15. I would also love to see a season where they follow the high school teams.
I think that Tyfa was embarrassed badly by the first season, and the screaming and running kids til they wanted to die, and the talking about injuring with hits, and they cleaned it up some.
The biggest embarrassment in the second season was the conduct of some of the parents and the near brawl, the infighting by coaches, and the off camera fight between the Ducks coach and a parent.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
I just watched the first episode of season 1 and am half intrigued and half horrified. Some of these coaches are fricken insane and if I saw any of my fellow coaches disregard safe tackling like that I'm not sure how I'd react, but it wouldn't be pretty.
Running kids all practice, threatening to run them if they don't step it up immediately. Man, I'm glad to hear that there were some punishments handed down on some of these guys
I'm looking for a what is called an associate O-line coach to work with me at the Bantam level. Basically I'm going to be acting as the Offensive Co-ordinator while keeping o-line duties, but I'm looking for a coach to help me run the o-line and work on individual skills and scheme work.
I'd prefer to have someone that's got some coaching certification, and is looking at taking the heads up safe tackling course.
Its a good opportunity to get into football coaching with a really good program, and maybe get some on the job training.
Anyways if anyone is interested PM me, and we can meet up.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
These coaches have lost any semblance of balance in their lives.
The other aspect This reminds me of is coaches in Canadian youth sports disregard teaching skills in favour trying to win at all costs. You know, play your big strong fast kids, rather than focus on skills.
So I wanted to bump this because its a interesting discussion to me.
They've added a couple of seasons and to me Tyfa is frightening and we're seeing some of the worst things with a few bright lights
Some of the coaches have switched teams but are still coaching.
Even though they introduced Safe Contact with USA football a couple of years back, its clear that the coaches haven't been force to learn it. I was horrified to see a long time coach telling kids that to tackle you need to get your helmet under their chin, wrap them and drive through. I had a flashback to my playing days when my coach used to tell me to put my helmet in the middle of their chest and leave a smoking hole.
All of these coaches have severe dysfunction. The Outlaws which feature two veteran coaches in Marcus and Fred Davis are constantly screaming at themselves on the sidelines. In the last episode I watched. the Outlaws won state but there was a really ugly altercation between the two coaching staffs that was really embarrassing to watch.
These coaches all say the same thing. We're doing this for the kids. We're trying to show them how to live life. But in every game its all about the coaches and not the kids. And the amount of trash talking is tremendous between the coaches.
If there are any refs here that feel abused, in Texas football its X1000.
The parents are the worst. There was almost a brawl between two groups of parents because of the smack talking and BS going on to the point that the teams president almost quit.
Its really interesting to contrast the two styles of coaching
1) Safe contact
Canada - As of this year as a coach if you don't have the Heads up/safe contact certification. You can't step on the field, and you can't coach
Texas - They certainly don't teach it.
Canada - Safe Contact has to be taught in every practice. Also practices have gone to pretty low contact. Things like the Pit, and King of the Pit, and tackling during scrimmage are gone here.
Texas - Pit every days. full contact and tackling in scrimmage . Safe tackling is not taught.
Coaches conduct
Canada - We're encouraged not to swear around the kids or use overly violent terminolgy. Telling a kid to go out and dominate another kid is ok. Telling a kid to go out and murder or kill another kid is unacceptable. Terminology like kill shot for example isn't tolerated.
Texas - Ok kids we want you to go out there and show some aggression and punch that other team in the f'in face. Well you get the point
Parents -
Both horrible in terms of smack talking and other BS.
Finally tactics and strategy.
Texas - These kids do know football especially the QB's. This allows the offensive and defensive coordinators to do more playcalling on the fly without practicing a play. That was really cool to actually watch.
Canada - At that level which would be pretty much PeeWee the play callling is pretty simple and you have between 5 and 10 plays that your players can execute and you do it constantly. At the Bantam level you can get playbooks with over 100 offensive plays and multiple formations. But god forbid you change something on the fly.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Friday Night Tykes
