Many individuals who played high school, college and even semi pro football are now married and have a real job, however, they still want to stay involved in football. One great way is to become a volunteer youth football coach. Youth football goes by many different names which include pee wee, midget, little guy, Pop Warner and junior football as well as many more names.
There are many different leagues and organizations where can volunteer to help. A quick search on google, or in your local phone book, will show you the options available. I’m sure there’s everything available from flag to tackle football with the ages ranging from 4 to 14 years old. You will find competitive leagues, non-competitive football, local leagues as well as travel teams. There are private organizations as well as park district level teams.
Coaching children is completely different from playing or being involved with the high school or higher levels of football. Everything you do needs to be tweaked and adjusted for the appropriate age and skill level you are coaching. If you have never coached little kids before, I suggest you spend at least two years as an assistant coach helping a long-term, well established successful coach. You need to learn from a successful coach, not just one who has been coaching forever. Many coaches have been at this for many years, yet continue to make the same mistakes because they never learned the correct way to coach kids.
In addition to helping out, you should continue to learn as much as you can about YOUTH football. As I have stated before, youth football is very different than older levels of football. The younger the kids are the more difficult it is. Far too many coaches try to relive their youth by attempting to install far too sophisticated offensive and defensive schemes. You need to study only youth football since there are many different concepts you will need to instill into your players.
Do not take your old high school playbook and think you can teach it to a bunch of eight year old and have success. You will learn from experienced youth coaches that there are only a few specific drills and skills you need to teach the players to have a successful season. As the players get older you can add more detailed plays.
In closing, if you decide to coach youth football, please make sure you get a good foundation before you just take a team and hope for the best.
