Football and Coaching- #1 Meeting Place for Football Coaches on the Internet

Every so often I get an email from a fellow coach who would like to contribute to FootballandCoaching.com . One such coach is Dan Levin. He wanted to bring an international flare to the site and enlighten the rest of the football coaching world on the many obstacles and rewards that come with coaching overseas. Here is his story:

There’s a small group of football coaches out there in the world that may have the toughest assignment out there:  coaching internationally.

I currently coach a squad of high schoolers (14-18yrs old), as well as adults for a local club team in Melbourne, Australia.  The challenges I face are phenomenally different from those in the US, where
practices are daily, coaching staffs large, and players are committed only to the game.  For us here (and I suspect everywhere else in the world), we deal with only having players a few times a week, with
little help, and struggle to get consistent numbers at practice.

"Coaching the worst team ever"

My adult squad is quite possibly the worst team ever in American football history.  I’m not joking.  Two years ago (2007), they didn’t score a point, forfeiting 4 times on the way to a 0-12 winless season. This past year, they scored twice (once against an expansion team), and again, went 0-12. I’m sure many coaches would attribute that atrociousness to a lack of coaching, and that’s certainly true.  But, it’s considerably more than that.  I came into the squad three weeks into the 2008 season after my own team obliterated them by the score of 109-0 (and this with 12-minute quarters and a running clock).  I felt embarrassed for them, and felt obligated to help them out as best I can.  When I got down to
a practice, I saw I had my work cut out for me. When it comes to coaching, it’s always easier to coach a blank-slate, particularly here in Australia.  It’s always easier to teach someone new technique than it is to break them of terribly bad habits.  With this club, not only did I have to teach them the right technique, I had to essentially re-teach every single offensive position, starting from the stance up, plus I had to completely re-design the offensive playbook.  If people want to know what a winless playbook looks like, imagine a playbook where there are no counter plays, no misdirections, and no play-actions.  It was truly deplorable. The funny thing is that once I arrived and started teaching them plays that could work and technique that’s accepted, they started moving the ball with pretty decent consistency, and yet they still couldn’t score.   Some may wonder if that has to do with the coaching, and I assure you, I only wish it did.  That relates to a different issue altogether – healthy players. When you have a team that only suits up 17 healthy bodies a week, and that 17 is usually down to 15 after the first quarter, it becomes incredibly difficult to compete against other squads twice your size in number and experience.  One game in particular was incredibly frustrating, when we had installed a slew of new plays only for me to find out on the day that our starting receivers and center had to work, and our left tackle was at church.  This meant that our starting QB had to play left guard, our starting RB to play QB, our corners going both ways at receiver positions even though they couldn’t catch, and every member of the line going both ways against the second best team in the league.  Suffice it to say, we lost by a lot.

I’m curious to know what problems other coaches deal with on a regular basis?  What are your struggles, and how do you overcome them?

If you would like to contribute your knowledge or expereinces to the site whether as a player or coach, simply drop me a line using the contact form .

Tags: american football in australia, australia football, coaching international football, International Football