A friend of mine coaches at a pretty decent and well respected six man school. His team is doing ok, but steadily improving. Here recently in practice he has been mixing up his starters on offense and defense so practice is more balanced and competitive. Now here is the problem, when you have your best Linebacker Teeing off on your #1 running back, and your #1 running back stiff arming your safeties and corners and running them over, words are exchanged and things get chippy. Everyday this happens and leads to 1 or 2 small squirmishes or even a mini brawl… I know you want to build toughness and aggressiveness but when is too much??
Fights during practice....
- Thread starter 90sLegend
- Start date
Oldiebutagoodie
11-man fan
I always enjoy when this happens. It's only too much for me if the brawls get to the point where someone is at risk of getting hurt or they become major and constant distractions from practice.
smokeyjoe53
Six-man pro
Seems like I remember an old maxim,"Practice like you play"..........
Little Doc
11-man fan
Anyone that acts like that in practice or in a game is plain and simple an idiot. Another old adage: If you want to fight, join the army.
Oldiebutagoodie
11-man fan
Let me clear up what I meant. I don't condone fighting with teammates and especially not the opponet,ever. I preach family to my kids everyday. Now... Deep down I do like when there is jawing and scuffling, IN PRACTICE. I notice a crispness to everything we do and a true competitive edge a lot of practices miss when kids jog through motions. As long as they are not cheap shots and they are not in danger of hurting themselves or teammates, I'm cool with it(until it becomes a destraction), now the kids dont know this because I chew their butts up and down. Also worth mentioning I have only ever had 3 scuffles in practice. (Don't want anyone picturing me with a bunch thugs starting fights and swinging helmets)
Once heard from who I consider to be the best 6man coach in recent memory say "never seen a team of chior boys win it all," Its Okay to be violent in football. Since everyone is adding their quotes to live by on this I'll add this. "Iron sharpens iron"
Once heard from who I consider to be the best 6man coach in recent memory say "never seen a team of chior boys win it all," Its Okay to be violent in football. Since everyone is adding their quotes to live by on this I'll add this. "Iron sharpens iron"
Oldiebutagoodie
11-man fan
I think it depends on a couple of things. *depth and experienceol' gus":impje69p said:
If you have a lot of juniors and seniors you're right. If you're younger then kids can only learn to tackle and hit by doing it. There is a balance. Teams that have the depth to go good on good should IMO, but let's be honest if you're not real deep you won't have the issue to begin with.
Encouraging fighting or not stopping it once begun should never happen. It generally encourages animosity between players and within the team itself in my not a Coach humble opinion. But I remember an occasion where a little bit of it helped our team I think. We had a big turd on the o-line (11 man jr high/9th grade). His greatest football ability was occupying space. He would do things like sit or lay on you long after a play was over and wiggle his fat ass just to let you know who was boss (or biggest). One day after such a play a team mate no bigger than me kinda blindsided him with a shoulder pad after he got up and actually moved him a little. Big boy reacted with a haymaker that missed when my smaller teammate ducked. Teammate reacted with a couple of quick uppercut's to the chinstrap that knocked his head back a little. I don't think anybody had ever hit big boy back. He did not like it and was trying to grab teammate to most likely punch him a few times and sit on him when the Coach broke it up.
Big boy quit sittin on teammate and most of the rest of us. I think the rest of us played a little harder after that thinking if we couldn't whup the other guy we could at least make him respect us.
We still didn't win but about half our games but I've wondered since if the incident didn't help us keep from going 0 and or 1 and.
Big boy quit sittin on teammate and most of the rest of us. I think the rest of us played a little harder after that thinking if we couldn't whup the other guy we could at least make him respect us.
We still didn't win but about half our games but I've wondered since if the incident didn't help us keep from going 0 and or 1 and.
51eleven":10svc8vl said:
I never thought about it before until I had written it down and read it but looking backwards I wonder if Coach didn't talk to big boy about sittn on us and that's why he quit doing it. BB still did this to other teams, which I enjoyed watching. After all he Was still a teammate, and I'd been there before myself so I knew somebody on the other team was gettin whopped. Ever got away with a quick head slap on the line? Heel of the hand to the ear hole at the snap as your hittin the guy. The officials should watch for this more.
YoungGunner
11-man fan
Let 'em have their time. It strengthens their bond as a brotherhood, if they have such. It only gets out of hand when some kid wants to play "Hero", and then usually they deserve to be put in place. Really, if don't cut them loose and let them settle it on the field, get ready for them to settle it in the locker room lol
Longhorn85
Six-man fan
We were not allowed to fight during school or in practice as members of the football team... If there was something that came up, Coach would have us put on the gloves and we had 3 minutes to sort it out at the beginning of practice. Things have changed now, and kids sort things out on social media. It is a different world.
