Imagine taking over a losing team and taking them to the playoffs, in fact, to a second place finish in your division, in your very first season as a head football coach. Coach Shine did just that in his first year as a head football coach. In fact his team the year before had won just a single game.

It's that sort of thing that makes coaching more addictive than crack.

I met Coach Shine at the Double Wing Football Coaches Forum that I host. Not only has he been a good friend, but also a staunch advocate of the Gap-8 (He calls it the 10-1) and the Double Wing offense. I had the privilege of meeting Coach Shine at Hugh Wyatt's Double Wing clinic in Sacramento, CA, and I have only one thing to say to the other coaches in his league: look out! Coach Shine is fast becoming the best prepared and educated coach online.

It took some cajoling, but I was able to talk Coach Shine into sharing his stations for determining talent. This is probably the toughest thing every coach has to deal with: trying to figure out which kid should be at right guard, and which kid should be carrying the rock. I think Coach Shine's four station system is one of the most efficient ways I've yet seen for determining talent.

This article is reprinted by permission of Coach Shine. The copyright on this article is held by Coach Wade in Coach Shine's name. You may only make copies of this article for personal or team use without express written permission of the original author.

~D.

The 2000 season was my first as a head coach and just my 2nd full season as a youth football coach. To say I am/was a rookie coach is an understatement. I would dare say we did some things right and a lot of things wrong, but we were always competitive. I knew going into the season what type of offense and defense I planned to run, and I believe the most important aspect of installing your offense and defensive schemes is the evaluation of talent. Having the right players in the right positions helped us take advantage of rookie coaching mistakes.

In our conference there is no type of draft. Every player is eligible to play for any team and his contract with that team expires at the end of the calendar year. Teams in our conference are generally made up by geographical boundaries. As a coaching staff we have no idea the caliber of players we will have until the first day of practice. I like to put my team through a series of “stations” during our first 2-3 days of practice. These evaluations of each player in each of the stations will give our coaching staff an overview of what our team make-up will be. By the end of evaluations we should be able to group our players into “backs” and “lineman”-without ever having to judge a book by its cover. So many youth coaches tend to typecast their players and will often hurt their team by positioning their players by appearance rather than their strengths. To help a coach and in particular rookie coaches determine their player’s strengths and weaknesses I would recommend setting up stations.

I also recommend running stations as a way to “try out” all players for all positions. In reading “Coaching Youth Football” by John T. Reed, I learned that a player or parent would never be able to accuse me of not letting their son try out for the running back or quarterback spot. I will be able to show Father Dave little Davey’s evaluation chart, and it should reflect that little Davey has more aptitude to be a defensive tackle instead of a linebacker. For the parents that don’t treat us an underpaid babysitters-and they actually stay to watch their child practice; they will see for themselves little Billy’s attempts at passing, pulling, running, kicking and pursuing.

Offer loads of encouragement-for the first year players some of the evaluation stations will prove to be difficult- but there will be a particular drill during our evaluations that they will excel at and the player will know this as well.

STATION #1

The first thing I do is time all the kids in the 10 and 20 yd dash. I stay away from the 40yd dash because at this level how fast a child runs a 40 is irrelevant in my opinion. A 10 and 20 yd time will give you a basis to judge your offensive and defensive lineman, as well as the quickness of your offensive and defensive backs.

STATION #2

The next station will consist of agilities. This station has 3 sub-stations, which are:

A) 4 Cone
B) Weave Cone
C) Pursuit Drill

A) 4 Cone:

This drill consists of placing four cones in a square outline, roughly 5-7 yards apart. Each player will take his turn and line up at the first cone in a sprinters stance. On the coaches call the player will sprint from the 1st cone to the 2nd cone- then shuffle to the 3rd cone- then backpedal to the 4th cone-pivot (face coach) and carioca across to the starting cone. The coach shall chalk, walk and demonstrate at full speed this station. I would imagine your players will have the most difficulty with the pivot from the backpedal to the carioca. This is not a drill where you do a lot of coaching. As a matter of fact none of the stations are. The main key is to evaluate raw talent. Offer loads of encouragement-for the first year players some of the evaluation stations will prove to be difficult, but there will be a particular drill during our evaluations that they will excel at and the player will know this as well. If you so choose you can time this drill, but I prefer to do this as an untimed drill as to not provide the sense of urgency to complete the station in the fastest time. I am looking more for sound technique based on raw ability.

B) Weave Cone:

Place five cones 5-8 yards apart in a zigzag pattern. Each player will carry a football at this station. The player will take his mark at the first cone and on the coaches call the player will race to the next cone and cut to the outside of the cone. The ball should be carried in his outside arm. The player will round the cone. We want the ball carrier to place his inside hand down (touch the grass) and spring to accelerate to the next cone. Again the ball carrier will cut around the outside of the cone (COACHING POINT: The ball carrier should switch hands during the run in between cones, so that the ball is resting in the outside arm and the inside hand is placed on ground). BC will continue on to the next cone, etc. This drill should be timed. At this station we are obviously looking for our ball carriers as well as the agility of our linebackers, defensive backs, and lineman.

C) Pursuit Drill:

A coach will stand in the center of our defensive alignment. We will have five defenders that stand five yards from the coach and facing him in a LB’s stance, roughly five yards apart. The coach will throw a ball as if he is pitching right or left. All 5 defenders should take a direct individual path and touch the ball. This is not a timed drill. (COACHING POINT- explain to the players that each defender must take a slightly different path to the ball.) They should not follow directly behind another player. Do not over coach this as well. You are looking for angles taken as well as the ability to follow directions. This drill should give you insight into the quickness and reaction of your players.

STATION #3

The next station is called the 3-bag station. Place 3 blocking dummies side by side and roughly 2-3 yards apart. To the outside of the 1st bag, your player will position himself in a 4 pt. Stance, at the snap of the ball the player will bear crawl along the first blocking bag. Once he has cleared the top of the bag the player will come out of his bear crawl and shuffle to the middle of the of the next bag. The player will then backpedal to clear the 2nd bag and shuffle to the middle of the 3rd bag, then sprint alongside of the 3rd bag and tackle a standing blocking dummy (or hit rip pads held by a coach). This drill is not a timed drill. We are looking for explosiveness, quickness and desire to get to the tackling dummy.

STATION #4

Toughman station:

Simply place two bags side by side roughly two yards apart. Two players will take their place in between the bags. The object of this station is for the two players to try and push or block the other player out of the alley (gap between the bags). This drill will give you insight into leg strength, upper body strength, heart and desire. It is a very competitive drill and you will definitely see which of your players have that “inner” fight in them and which ones might be more passive.

I believe that these drills that I’ve discussed should help any rookie coach in the first stage of installing your system-the evaluation of talent. The above drills all can be completed in the first day of practice. Days two and three will consist of center/quarterback exchange, receiver routes, backpedal drills, and form tackling, as well as Special Teams. But we will save those for another article.

By the way in my first year as a head coach and running the Double Wing and 10-1/GAM defenses for the first time as well, the South Valley Panthers Gremlin Division (8-10) went 7-3-1 and made the play-offs. We ranked 4th in a division of 18 teams in points allowed, and 10th in the division for points scored. The great pride I take in this is that this was the same core group of kids that the season before went a combined 1-17-2(two 99’ teams made up the 00’ team).

I hope some of what I wrote can help a coach out there. If you have been doing things similar to this, don’t change. Resist the urge to get more complex. It is okay to be simple. Less is more.

William Shine
Head Coach
South Valley Panthers
01’ Tiny Mite Division 9-11