Joe McCaffery's Blog

This is Keegan’s second season playing in the city’s flag-football league. It’s a pretty good league, especially from a parent’s point of view. There are no practices (which is both a blessing and a curse) and only one game a week. It’s also a 5-on-5 league to boot, so all of the kids get to have a turn playing all of the positions.

There is a tackle football league he could have played in, but in terms of the level of commitment that league is on the opposite end of the spectrum. They had two-weeks of two-a-day practices at the end of the summer, three practices a week after that, and games on Saturday. We opted for the lesser of two since Keegan’s only seven and I don’t want him to get burned out before he’s nine…call me crazy.

This year’s season started off much better than last year in that he was placed on the Cardinals team rather than the Eagles (As a New York Giants fan it’s just didn’t seem right cheering for the Eagles). However when I went to the pre-season parent’s meeting to pick up Keegan’s uniform, roster and schedule I couldn’t help but notice that his team was going to be coached by TBD…

The next week was his first game. We ended up getting there early since I knew from the previous season that if they could spend 20 minutes figuring out which kids could actually throw and which kids could actually catch that at least the coach would know where to line them up.

First thing we did was to find a set of flags from the pile of flags that are available. I guess I looked like I knew what I was doing because other kids came up to me asking for me to get their flag to show them how to put them on. I was finally able to get away and started playing catch with Keegan. Kids with the same color shirts as Keegan began standing next to him. We made introductions and I started throwing to them as well. Pretty soon the ref was calling over at our group, “Coach, we need your captains.” When I looked back at the boys and their parents they were all looking back at me…That was the beginning of my football coaching career.

I thought back to the previous season and how, from a parent’s point of view, the first few games would get somewhat frustrating (at least it was for me, aka Mr. Patience). Not because the kids weren’t trying, but because they didn’t practice so the kids weren’t really sure where to line up or what to do.

The same held true this year. I kind of knew which kids understood what we were trying to do, but wasn’t really sure. We tried a few different things, but it was pretty much a fire drill. Every kid wanted to carry the ball, I couldn’t keep track of who had played what position, or who had taken their turn sitting out. Our only saving grace was that the other team was running their own set of fire drills.

After that first game, when I knew I was going to be the coach, I figured I’d better do what I could to make sure the kids knew where to line up. So I put together simple slide to help them quickly and easily see where they should be. Then I thought I’d add some arrows so they’d know where to go. Then copied the slide and modified it to illustrate a few more slides. Before I knew it I had a whole playbook.

The next week was awesome. I showed up early and worked with some of the kids. Only five of our seven kids showed up that day as it was raining and kind of cold (for California, not Montana; I was in shorts and sandals). It worked out well though because I wanted to make sure they understood how to line up and how to run our base plays — toss left and toss right.

Basically I wanted to make sure they didn’t get caught in the mass of confusion in the middle of the field. In our league if they can get around the corner they’ll have a chance to score. I also put in a fake toss where they fake the toss in one direction and then turn and pass to the other direction. I remember thinkingit was a good strategy, but figured that it might be too much for the boys. I figured wrong.

They did awesome and we scored almost every time. Toss left, toss right, fake toss pass for a touchdown. Every kid scored a touchdown. In the first half. After that I basically just had the kids hand off the ball. The problem was that we still kept scoring. On defense I was able to use the playbook to show them where to line up and they did almost just as well on defense.

Our season is almost over now and, as cliche as it might sound, the kids have improved each week. The other coaches have also started trying to do more with their kids as well, which is funny because a few of them were annoyed with me the first time I pulled out the playbook with my kids. They’ve stepped up though because the next time we played those teams they were getting better as well. Almost every team we played this year tried to pass the ball. That was almost unheard of the previous year, so I think it’s been good for the whole league.

We played our second to last game this morning and they continued to impress me. Our team had three interceptions and returned all of them for touchdowns! Like I said, they’ve improved every week. The best part though is that I’ve had the opportunity to get to know them as the season has progressed. Each of them has a unique and funny personality and they really crack me up some games.

I’ve done my best to teach them a little bit about football, to help them understand what it means to be a good sport, and to make sure they all have fun. In the end though I think I’ve had more fun than the boys did, which is great considering that coaching (and I use that term loosely) was the furthest thing from my mind when we climbed out of my truck on the morning of that first game.

Be Sociable, Share!

•