Coaching Football During COVID-19

In many parts of the country, Friday nights in the fall wouldn’t be complete without the local high school football team taking the field.

Tapping into Youth Football to Sustain Your Future

Years of struggling seasons led to a dwindling player base at Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. Football in the resort community was sinking fast and the Dolphins’ athletic department was considering mooring the program for good back at the turn of the century.

6 Tips to Maximize Fundraising Around Football

1. Efficiency Surrounding Fundraising Efforts — It is integral to develop positive relationships with your local businesses, boosters, and parent groups. Having a strategic plan to direct your efforts is key in prioritizing your fundraising efforts. Work with your school administrators, student-athletes, coaches, and parents to develop a strategic plan.Your strategic plan can act as a mechanism to share your story and identify the needs your student-athletes and programs need to be successful. Have a vision and use your vision to drive your fundraising campaigns!

Here are a few tips in using internal support to assist your efforts in providing your athletic department with the necessary funds to offer your student-athletes the best experience possible. First, I would suggest working with your director of buildings & grounds to discuss a 10-year capital plan in many instances, working with your school in facility planning can truly act as an internal fundraising mechanism. Secondly, I would also have your coaches submit budget requests each year to work with your school budget planning team & booster to identify what your school budget can absorb and what boosters can help in supplementing your school budget. Thirdly, share your strategic plan and needs with your alumni, business community, supporters, and boosters! 

10th Annual Athletic Directors Survey

Are high school athletic programs struggling financially? How have athletic departments responded to the COVID-19 pandemic? Which sports are being added to athletic departments in the not-so-distant future? These are a few of the questions we answer in our 2021 State of the Industry survey of high school athletic administrators — the 10th year in which we’ve conducted this nationwide survey.

Guiding Coaches to create Positive Working-Relationships with Student-Athletes

While coaches should prepare their teams to win games, it is essential to remind them that the number one objective in education-based athletics is the growth and development of student-athletes. And this fundamental point does not strictly or narrowly refer to sport-specific skills. The intent is much larger and more important. The ultimate goal is to help young people become good, contributing individuals in the community and society as a whole, and someone who gained valuable qualities and traits through involvement in athletics.