MinotStateBeav said:

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Totally applaud this high school doing this. I hope this coach learns a bit of humility and doesn't stop coaching, he's obviously a good coach, but needed this lesson imho.

Marist Catholic Fires Coach

Btw Marist Catholic is a traditional powerhouse football program in the state.

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Piling on like that was a bad look.

But I was thinking about the idea that onside kicks were rubbing it in. Were they? I know the second one failed. The odds of recovering an onside kick are at best maybe, what, 20% in high school? Much less now in the NFL with the new kickoff protocols. So by doing an onside kick wasn't there an 80% or so chance that they were giving the ball to the beleaguered team with good field position?

MinotStateBeav said:

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Btw Marist Catholic is a traditional powerhouse football program in the state.

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They are a 4a school. I'm not sure any school at that level qualifies as a powerhouse.

Is this a joke? Up by 57 and trying onside kicks and this is a debate? If the debate were, how far ahead should you be before you should stop stealing bases a la baseball manly man rules. But 57 point lead even at 4a is weird.

tequila4kapp said:

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MinotStateBeav said:

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Btw Marist Catholic is a traditional powerhouse football program in the state.

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They are a 4a school. I'm not sure any school at that level qualifies as a powerhouse.

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It's a Catholic School, they don't operate like public schools. De La Salle also didn't use to play in the highest division in California even though they would dominate most of them at the time. 4A is just one level from the top 5A. Marist would beat a lot of 5A schools.

A Jesuit run school would fire him. Christian Brothers? Not a chance.

CALiforniALUM said:

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I'm torn with calling the dogs off when you are up by a lot. As the parent of a soccer goal keeper we played on some really bad ECNL club teams. It was those teams that didn't call the dogs off that provided my kid the experience needed to get better. Better enough that next year my kid will be playing soccer in college. It wasn't the teams that we beat that I thank, but those who took us to the woodshed. My kid needed to see 10,000 shots to become an expert at their craft. We focus too much on the final score and not enough on the journey. 57-0 isn't that bad at half time. What is worse is not even being given the chance to play the second half.

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That's a cool take.
Good luck to Sonny Boy!

CALiforniALUM said:

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I'm torn with calling the dogs off when you are up by a lot. As the parent of a soccer goal keeper we played on some really bad ECNL club teams. It was those teams that didn't call the dogs off that provided my kid the experience needed to get better. Better enough that next year my kid will be playing soccer in college. It wasn't the teams that we beat that I thank, but those who took us to the woodshed. My kid needed to see 10,000 shots to become an expert at their craft. We focus too much on the final score and not enough on the journey. 57-0 isn't that bad at half time. What is worse is not even being given the chance to play the second half.

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Football or rugby are different from soccer, because there is a physical punishment element here with one team being clearly stronger dishing physical hits to their overmatched opponent. In soccer it is just about bruised egos.

CALiforniALUM said:

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I'm torn with calling the dogs off when you are up by a lot. As the parent of a soccer goal keeper we played on some really bad ECNL club teams. It was those teams that didn't call the dogs off that provided my kid the experience needed to get better. Better enough that next year my kid will be playing soccer in college. It wasn't the teams that we beat that I thank, but those who took us to the woodshed. My kid needed to see 10,000 shots to become an expert at their craft. We focus too much on the final score and not enough on the journey. 57-0 isn't that bad at half time. What is worse is not even being given the chance to play the second half.

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If you're destroying the other team, the chances your son will get a shot on goal to defend are miniscule, and probably outweighed by the good sportsmanship of calling the game where your sons team will likely not learn much playing another half.

CALiforniALUM said:

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I'm torn with calling the dogs off when you are up by a lot. As the parent of a soccer goal keeper we played on some really bad ECNL club teams. It was those teams that didn't call the dogs off that provided my kid the experience needed to get better. Better enough that next year my kid will be playing soccer in college. It wasn't the teams that we beat that I thank, but those who took us to the woodshed. My kid needed to see 10,000 shots to become an expert at their craft. We focus too much on the final score and not enough on the journey. 57-0 isn't that bad at half time. What is worse is not even being given the chance to play the second half.

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Softball has some unwritten rules about making intentional outs on the bases to help teams that are clearly overmatched. As a coach, I shared the same view as you. I always told the other team 'don't you dare think about taking it easy on us. You keep playing hard.' It was my job to get my kids better; it was their job to a) see what "good" looked like and b) to not enjoy it enough that they worked hard to get better. My team ended up being pretty good with every kid playing some level of college ball. Maybe that's a coincidence or maybe ???

I wonder if something else wasn't going on internally with the firing decision, like someone for whatever reason wanted the coach gone and this was the pretext. Because although I disapprove of grossly running up the score (unless there's some practical consideration like margin of victory is a standings tiebreaker), I would think a decent public apology by the coach and private assurance that it won't happen again would be sufficient.

Apparently the other team only had something like 16 players, with many of them playing both ways. So yeah, onside kicks is a massive dick move.

kal kommie said:

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I wonder if something else wasn't going on internally with the firing decision, like someone for whatever reason wanted the coach gone and this was the pretext. Because although I disapprove of grossly running up the score (unless there's some practical consideration like margin of victory is a standings tiebreaker), I would think a decent public apology by the coach and private assurance that it won't happen again would be sufficient.

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I heard that he was also extremely aggressive and overall just an ass, so the school was probably looking for any reason to get rid of him.

pingpong2 said:

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Apparently the other team only had something like 16 players, with many of them playing both ways. So yeah, onside kicks is a massive dick move.

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That is another story within a story. Cottage Grove is on the Oregon coast, it's not a tiny city and has a very very nice football facility. My team played there some years ago when I was coaching. It seemed like a wealthier community. For them to only have a varsity team that small is not good news for high school football. I looked up the school and it has 650 students 9 thru 12. They should be able to have 60-70 kids for a JV and Varsity team. Pretty poor participation numbers.

MinotStateBeav said:

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pingpong2 said:

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Apparently the other team only had something like 16 players, with many of them playing both ways. So yeah, onside kicks is a massive dick move.

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That is another story within a story. Cottage Grove is on the Oregon coast, it's not a tiny city and has a very very nice football facility. My team played there some years ago when I was coaching. It seemed like a wealthier community. For them to only have a varsity team that small is not good news for high school football. I looked up the school and it has 650 students 9 thru 12. They should be able to have 60-70 kids for a JV and Varsity team. Pretty poor participation numbers.

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I saw an article in the Oregonian that said 5 Oregon schools had cancelled games this week due to not having enough players. It was behind a paywall, so I couldn't get details. I've seen similar stories elsewhere. I think high school football is in trouble.

Cal88 said:

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CALiforniALUM said:

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I'm torn with calling the dogs off when you are up by a lot. As the parent of a soccer goal keeper we played on some really bad ECNL club teams. It was those teams that didn't call the dogs off that provided my kid the experience needed to get better. Better enough that next year my kid will be playing soccer in college. It wasn't the teams that we beat that I thank, but those who took us to the woodshed. My kid needed to see 10,000 shots to become an expert at their craft. We focus too much on the final score and not enough on the journey. 57-0 isn't that bad at half time. What is worse is not even being given the chance to play the second half.

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Football or rugby are different from soccer, because there is a physical punishment element here with one team being clearly stronger dishing physical hits to their overmatched opponent. In soccer it is just about bruised egos.

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You sound like a tough guy. A broken bone or a torn ligament doesn't care what sport you were playing. I think I have also read that soccer has its fair number of concussions and ACL injuries. I'll just leave it at that.

Oh come on, you surely aren't trying to equate soccer with football and rugby!

Or am I misreading your intent?

CALiforniALUM said:

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. My kid needed to see 10,000 shots to become an expert at their craft.

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In the Marines we would always say "imperfect practice makes imperfect"

10,000 repetitions when you are wholely overmatched teaches nothing.

Spending 10,000 hours training against the best UFC fighter going 100% won't teach you anything. 10,000 100mph fastballs won't teach a kid how to swing the bat.

There is no value in being obliterated like that, except maybe humility. In fact, in my experience, it is more likely to teach bad habits and entrench poor form.

It's lucky that he had good reps to overcome those bad reps.

LunchTime said:

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CALiforniALUM said:

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. My kid needed to see 10,000 shots to become an expert at their craft.

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In the Marines we would always say "imperfect practice makes imperfect"

10,000 repetitions when you are wholely overmatched teaches nothing.

Spending 10,000 hours training against the best UFC fighter going 100% won't teach you anything. 10,000 100mph fastballs won't teach a kid how to swing the bat.

There is no value in being obliterated like that, except maybe humility. In fact, in my experience, it is more likely to teach bad habits and entrench poor form.

It's lucky that he had good reps to overcome those bad reps.

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I'm sorry Mr Marine but I don't think your drill Sargent was talking about practice and game time in the same way. You seem to be confusing losing with failing to learn. They're not the same thing. And if your definition of valuable experience requires success, you're overlooking an enormous part of how people actually improve. But I will agree that most soccer players leave the pitch alive, but maybe you missed the point your drill Sergeant was trying to make? You don't get to make mistakes in war. In soccer you have the opportunity to come back and build on your successes and failures. Ooh rah!!! Go Bears!

Cal Not Weak said:

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Older Cal fans will remember this debate happening in our backyard a few times.

• Tedford had us run out the clock instead of running up the score on Southern Miss in 2004. We could have easily blown them out. Instead, we only won by 10. This game took place right in the middle of SEC/ACC country and had a lot to do with us missing the Rose Bowl. We had won our previous two games by over 30 points. All but three of our games that year resulted in us winning by more than 25 points. So I never understood why he took the Southern Miss game as the moment to suddenly grow a conscience.

• Chip Kelly's Oregon teams started beating us (and others) to sleep towards the end of Tedford's reign and the beginning of Dykes' tenure. Both coaches responded to questions by saying "the best response is to find a way to stop them."

• My High School team had our most humiliating loss when I was a freshman on varsity. We got run over by one of the best running backs in California history. 56-0 was the final score. Our opponent played their 2nd team in the 3rd quarter and their third team in the fourth quarter (they still outscored us 14-0 in the second half). I remember making a head-on solo tackle against their first string running back (who outweighed me by something like 40 pounds). After the initial collision he dragged me 18 yards. I remember our hottest cheerleader screaming "oh my god!" before I got up from the turf with grass stuck in my facemask. I could barely get out of bed the next day. I still have nightmares about that game and I am in my sixties. I can't imagine the trauma I'd have if we had been outscored 63-0 in the first half and if we had forfeited and if the other coach was pulling that weak onside kick crap.

High school and college are not the same.

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Running your offense to the end of the game with backups is completely different than attempting an onside kick up 57 in the 1st half. Come on.

Eastern Oregon Bear said:

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MinotStateBeav said:

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pingpong2 said:

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Apparently the other team only had something like 16 players, with many of them playing both ways. So yeah, onside kicks is a massive dick move.

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That is another story within a story. Cottage Grove is on the Oregon coast, it's not a tiny city and has a very very nice football facility. My team played there some years ago when I was coaching. It seemed like a wealthier community. For them to only have a varsity team that small is not good news for high school football. I looked up the school and it has 650 students 9 thru 12. They should be able to have 60-70 kids for a JV and Varsity team. Pretty poor participation numbers.

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I saw an article in the Oregonian that said 5 Oregon schools had cancelled games this week due to not having enough players. It was behind a paywall, so I couldn't get details. I've seen similar stories elsewhere. I think high school football is in trouble.

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Less kids are playing football; that's a fact. What happens this time of year is that some kids can't make grades and then pretty soon there aren't enough players left to field a team.

It goes beyond that Big C. You can use Duck Duck Go and find articles relating to high school athletes. (in particular) who are leaving football for any number of reasons beyond grades.

As I'm sure you know, the incidence of concussions is one of great concern to many players and parents. Because football is now teaching tackling and blocking skills that incorporate leading with the helmet, proper skills are less prevalent. Manufactures keep trying to "improve the helmet" instead of coaches trying to improve the technique. So, understandably, many parents (and kids) are less enthused about exposing their kid (or selves) to increased possibility of serious injury through the game of football.

There is also a pretty hefty amount of money involved with football for equipment, and added insurance. It becomes increasingly challenging for middle and lower income families to promote football.

Additionally, for those who want to play multiple sports, it seems to be a sad trend that high school coaches are asking their players to commit to the game year round rather than getting the experience of participating in multiple sports.

And finally, (and this is one I think is ultra-important), the atmosphere around football has become one of self centered antics. Players dance, "talk", and taunt on a routine basis. A player will make a tackle, get up, and gesture to the crowd, or point to themself, or dance etc. just for making a routine play. The idea of sportsmanship is becoming increasingly rare in the game.

So for many of these kids, they are finding alternatives or just leaving the game altogether.

For those kids who particularly enjoy contact sports, there is rugby, La Crosse, and wrestling, all of which have cultures that promote sportsmanship and respect that are being lost in football. For those who don't have the same drive for contact sports, they can concentrate on other sports where their chances of injury are less.

So while your point about grades may has merit, it is far from the only reason for the decline of football participation. It is worth considering that the issue of grades has been around for many years. But the other issues have accelerated in recent years.. The game of football as you and I have known it, is not at all what it was in our youth, unfortunately.

It is a shame more schools don't offer wrestling (particularly in college). But rugby is experiencing rapid and noticeable growth. And I suspect that trend willl continue as people become less enthused with the college football game due to pay for play, NIL, portal, and re-alignments, all of which have taken some luster off the game many of us used to love.