Overall rating: (5.0 Highest rating!)

Available through: www.johntreed.com

This is what a book on coaching is supposed to be like!

I first discovered Jack Reed's books just before the 1999 season. While searching on Amazon.com for materials on coaching I came across a review for a book called Coaching Youth Football. The reviewer described "Coach Reed's" book as the greatest thing to hit youth football since the invention of the cute mom.

Unfortunately, Amazon.com screwed up. The book that I was looking at was not written by Jack Reed. Instead, it was a committee-authored book by the American Sports Education Program. I was not only extremely disappointed in the book, I also decided not to buy Coach Reed's book when I hit his web site because that inaccurate review had convinced me that they were the same document.

There is absolutely no comparison. Coach Reed's books are the most incredible store of information on coaching youth football I have ever seen. I attribute nearly all of my success as a coach to Coach Reed's books, which could just as easily be titled Common Sense In Coaching.

Unlike the A.S.E.P. authors, Coach Reed has been on a practice field, and been forced to deal with many of the same things you and I have faced. Minimum play rules, weaker athletes, uneducated assistants, weight limits, and all of the other woes of the youth football coach have been confronted and overcome by Coach Reed, and if you take my advice and get the book, his knowledge and experience can save your season.

I am not exaggerating. Here are a few, a very few, of the things you will learn from Coach Reed's book:

1) Special teams plays that work. Hey, let's face the truth for a moment. How many youth coaches tell their kickers to put the ball high and long down the middle of the field? You in the back! Stand up! I know you did that last year!

Thing is, though, isn't that exactly what the other coach wants you to do? Why else did he take the two best athletes he has and tell them to stand back there?

Doesn't it make more sense to put the ball somewhere where the opposition can't get a return out of it? Doesn't it make even more sense to put it somewhere where your own team has a chance to recover it? Coach Reed's kickoff will give you a chance to do just that.

That's just a single example of the special teams information in Coach Reed's book. There's more, and it gets better.

2) A defense that works. Most of you hitting this site for the very first time may not be aware of my belief in the Gap-8. I consider it to be the most effective defense in youth football. It's fundamentally sound, strong against the attacks you are most likely to see, and effective against the pass. Coach Reed did not invent the Gap-8 (also called the 8-2-1, 10-1, and Gap-Air-Mirror). However, at this point he is the single largest source of information on that system.

Included in the defensive section is a diagram of the most effective tackling and defensive line drills I have ever seen. In ten minutes a day you can drastically improve your defense even if you choose not to install the Gap-8. This is no joke. Tackling is the most important skill in football, and also the most dangerous. You absolutely must have a clear and effective tackling system in place to teach your players properly.

I mean this quite seriously: if you do not have a safe tackling standard, then you are risking the health and safety of your players every time you take the field.

3) An offense that works. Folks, youth football ain't the dang NFL. I've heard from five or six coaches in just the past few weeks that have told me they have 30-40 plays, and all I can think is "Criminy! I wish you were on our schedule!"

I'm not trying to insult those coaches, many of whom are just starting out and literally don't know any better, but Vince Lombardi only had seventeen offensive plays.

Coach Reed's book will show you why it's more important to have a very few plays that can be run perfectly than it is to have a billion plays run poorly. He'll also show you why passing is a bad idea most of the time, and how to use the strength of your formation against the weakest point of the defense. All the information you need to select an effective offense for your team is right there.

If you are looking for a playbook, Coach Reed covers his own Single Wing system in exhaustive detail. I consider the Single Wing to be one of the greatest offensive systems in the history of football, and not only is it suitable for use at the youth level, it is also extremely effective at the youth level.

More than just the three sides to football, Coach Reed will also take you step by step through the most important fundamentals you must teach: proper tackling and a low defensive line charge, and how to get them from your players.

Coaches that have purchased previous editions of Coaching Youth Football will be happy to hear that there is a wealth of new information contained in edition three. Most notable is a section carefully written on coaching the option. I have to tell you, coaches, that for a moment (just a moment) I actually considered running the Wishbone triple option instead of my beloved Double Wing, because for the first time ever I found a clear "instruction manual" for teaching the option. Several of the more irritating and glaring of the typesetting errors have also been fixed in this version. (Coach Reed publishes his own books, and there were some mechanical errors in previous editions. These have been drastically reduced in the third edition.)

Also added to the new edition is a section on the four strategies of offensive football. I think you will find that it dovetails rather neatly with my article on selecting an offensive system.

There are a few things I don't agree with in the book. Primarily, I wish Coach Reed had included more base fundamentals. In numerous locations he mentions that he feels youth football is about assignments rather than fundamentals. I can't fault his reasoning, since I agree that a perfect block thrown on the wrong defender is more worthless than a poor block on the right guy. At least even a poor block may screen a tackler long enough to let the ball carrier through.

Despite a relative dearth of traditional "fundamentals" you'll notice that all the crucial information is there. Coach Reed doesn't waste his time, or yours, with descriptions of each player's footsteps during every play. Rather, he makes sure that you understand that double teaming players need to keep their hips together, and defensive linemen sensing trap should step to the inside and squeeze the hole down.

Coach Reed believes more in concepts than in specific fundamentals. I happen to agree with him. Where he feels fundamentals are important, he is quick to steer you towards books that teach only fundamentals, like Play Football The NFL Way by Tom Bass.

Don't misunderstand me. If Coach Reed feels you need to know how to perform a proper hand off, then he'll take you through that skill. Unlike strictly "fundamentals" books, though, you can enter a season armed with nothing more than this book and expect to have a successful season.

I recommend you do just that.

I give the book the following scores:

Readability: 5

Coach Reed has a somewhat acerbic wit and a low opinion of the average youth football coach. I don't blame him. I caution you to concentrate on his message, though. Keep in mind that since you purchased his book, and are taking time to study your sport, you are automatically no longer an "average" youth coach. Don't let Coach Reed's caustic truisms keep you from realizing that he may be right, even when it seems that he has a telescope trained on your practice field and he's being, shall we say, 'a little caustic'..

Each concept is carefully and clearly explained well enough for even me to understand it. Hey, I'm so dumb I thought making a web site would be easy!

Usefulness: 5

Are you kidding? I know of no fewer than four coaches right off the top of my head that all owe their winning seasons to Coach Reed's books. Three of us won division or league championships using his ideas and systems. The fourth stalled on fourth and goal from the one foot line down by three points in the league championship game. That's just off the top of my head! There are thousands of coaches using Coach Reed's systems successfully. Check out his testimonials if you don't want to take my word for it.

The beauty of the "Reed System" is that it can really be applied fairly easily to any offensive and defensive system because he spends so much time carefully teaching concepts.

Practicality: 5

It doesn't get any better than this. Almost everything Coach Reed recommends can be done with a football. There are a few drills where additional equipment is nice, such as his tackling drill that uses blocking dummies as landing pads, but the equipment is not essential to the efficacy of the drill.

Overall score: 5.0 Highest Rating!

Get it. In fact, since it may be a while before I get the chance to review Coach Reed's other books, I recommend that you save time and just order everything he has on his web site with "Football" in the title.

Oh, if you're one of my opponents, I'd rather you didn't. Thanks.