James Vondra- Developing a HS Football Program January-December

by Southern California Football Coaches Association

Description

Do you want to learn how to develop your high school program within a year? Well, you've come to the right place! In this course, Head Coach James Vondra for Quartz Hill High School breaks down the important aspects of what it takes to develop a High School football program. He details out What it takes and goes over the Quartz Hill High School Program so you can see how to transform your program similar to how Coach Vondra did.

He starts out by speaking on how you need to earn the right right to develop your program. This includes a multitude of things such as Having a Vision. You need to have a vision for your program to be able to sell to your assistant coaches, boosters, players, parents, and community. It is impossible to do alone so you need all the support you can get. He uses the analogy worry about getting the right people on the bus first then worry about putting them in the proper seats later. This means that you need to have the right people who will follow and support your vision first, then you can put them in the best position to carry your vision out. He then lists out a group of values and character traits you need in order to successfully produce your vision. A few of these are effort, commitment, and discipline. He details out why these are important in this course and how they will truly help you build your program. He also encourages fo you to build your staff and players to be Champions for Life. This will build them up both on and off the field as people. A few things he mentions are accountability, urgency, and leadership. With this course, you will learn how to build Champions for Life and make a great impact on your kids and staff. The final portion of Earn the Right he speaks on is the Truth. He holds open practices so parents can watch, enabling full transparency for his team. He states that anyone can get on social media and see what is going on anyway so it is best to be open and honest to everyone.

Next, he breaks down his program with different phases. He starts with an overview of his mission statement and goals. Phase 1 breaks down his offseason plans and priorities. He breaks down expectations, how to evaluate your coaches, meetings with players, parents, and coaches, and how to be a good assistant coach. If you want to be the best assistant coach possible, then you cannot miss out on this portion of the course. He then speaks on Phase 2, his Spring Practice Plans. He has a way to evaluate his players by recording, ranking, and publishing results he sees in practice and in scrimmages. For Phase 3, he breaks down the Summer Grind where the key is physical and mental conditioning and fieldwork. Phase 4 is a Dead Period where kids are doing summer school or football camps. Phase 5 is the Pre-Season. He introduces the game plan, equipment, gets the team acclimated to follow the vision. Phase 6 is during the season. He emphasizes that a consistent routine and relevance is the most important thing you can use for the season. The final Phase 7 is the Post-Season and an important highlight is to ensure your team realizes that it could be the last week of football.