Covid Coaching

 First things first, I am sorry there was such a huge gap in between this post and the last post. Like for many other people, things have been crazy. My excuse is I got married, started a new job, started coaching, and bought a house. Finally though, things seem to be calming down, at least in those senses. In other aspects, the world is as confusing as it's ever been. Teaching is remote, football practice is canceled, nobody really seems to know what is going on, and I think that is the most frustrating part of it all. 

The first thing that I want to take a little time to reflect on is teaching during covid, especially teaching remotely. It is extremely difficult to teach to a computer screen. especially as a special educator. One of the most important things to build with your students is a relationship. That is really hard to do over a computer screen. These kids need to know that you care about them both as a student and a person. We have to look back to Maslow's hierarchy, kids learn best when they have their basic needs met. If a kid does not feel safe and supported, then they will likely struggle to learn. It is frustrating, but there is not much we can do to remedy this except for be there for our students and reassure them that everything will be okay. Kids need stability and structure, something that is really hard to provide over a computer screen. Then there are things that they can not control. Teachers have to remember we are in the middle of a pandemic where NOBODY seems to know what is happening. There is a lot of uncertainty that kids are facing, we have to be sensitive to that. The internet will crash, Ipads will be broken or lost, kids will sleep through class, none the less we will push on. Kids are scared, they are humans after all. We cannot treat this year like every other year, because it's not. We have to take it one step at a time, take it slow, and be extremely understanding of the difficulties our students are now facing. 

 There have been some good things come out of teaching online for me. I am now forced to learn technology and think of ways to incorporate it into the classroom. I think students, while in some cases they struggle, are getting deeply enriching activities using technology. For example, I am teaching about Jamestown, I was able to find a video tour of Jamestown online that the students could use to "experience" what life there would be like. This is a great supplement to lectures and reading that I now have in my tool box! By the way, don't let anyone lie to you, teaching online is 10x harder than teaching in-person. 

Coaching during Covid has been really interesting. It has really made me step back and re-evaluate the way that I coach. I think the biggest challenge was really in the early summer when we were told we were not allowed to use pads and could not make contact with each other. It is really really really difficult to teach someone to tackle, or read a man-key, or get off a block, without making contact with another person or using a pad. Here are some of the ways that I coached around that. I made sure to overcoach everything that lead up to the point of contact. I have LBs, so I spent a lot of time working on read step, eyes, and feet. One of my favorite drills works on all of the aspects, the read drill. I have 3 LBs face 3 lineman. I stand behind the LBs and give them assignments of either down block or pull. On go, the linemen step to these blocks (simulating power, counter, buck) it is the LB's jobs to make the correct read and fit the way we want to. For us it is playside and mike inside the kick, backside scraping over top reading cloudy to clear. Once they get their fit they breakdown and throw their hands like they are wrapping up a defender and run a few yards like that. If we cannot make contact, we have to make sure we are perfecting the technique for it. 

Another one that I like is the shuffle break drill. This drill focuses on the lateral movement of a LB and closing space off of the edge. I take two cones and set them 5 yards apart. I stand diagonal at a 45 degree angle about 4 yards from the end cone. On the whistle, the LB will take their read step by the first cone, and then stay low and shuffle to the next come 5 yards away. Once they get to that cone they break hard down hill towards me and come to balance as if to make a tackle. I then point to either side of me and the LB completes the movements of a tackle to that side, whizzing up his hands like I mentioned before. I like this drill because it gets guys used to moving and lets them attack the ball downhill. It also forces them to understand they have to breakdown and be under control if they want to make the tackle. 

Honestly, the hardest part of coaching during Covid is not seeing your kids. In Kanawha county, we are not allowed to practice right now, I haven't seen the kids I coach in a week. I hate not being around them and helping them out. I worry about home lives, I worry that they are getting into things they shouldn't, I worry that they are regressing because of this downtime. Football, and sports in general are about more than just wins and losses and friday night lights. They are about development. They give kids opportunities that they would not have otherwise. They provide an escape from poor situations, something that a lot of kids desperately need. They teach kids commitment, teamwork, and lets them see that hard work pays off in the long run. I hate this shutdown for the kids, for the seniors especially. I only hope that it ends soon.