School team

“ If I had my choice of either winning the game or winning the faith of a boy, I would choose the latter. There is no greater reward for a coach than to see his players achieve their goals in life and to know he had some small part in the success of the boys’ endeavors.
Boys who participate in football, whether in high school or college, are in their formative years. It is every coach’s responsibility to see that each boy receives the necessary guidance and attention he so rightly deserves. ”

“ If you allow such men as these on school football teams, what is to prevent University students from taking one hour a week at the High-School in order that they may play football on the High-School team? ”

“ It is all very proper for instructors who were athletes in college to give the scholars at the school they teach in the benefit of their experience by coaching the players, and even by going out on the field and playing against the first school team. But they should always play against the team, not with it, except for the purpose of demonstrating a play. By coaching the school players they are doing much good for the school team and for sport. But by joining the school players in games against other schools they do injury both to the players and to the cause of sport. ”

“ In one of the towns where I was superintendent, the school had had no student activities during the preceding year except football and baseball. The teams had been coached by an outsider who was intensely interested in having a winning team but cared little for the value of athletics to the boys or to the school. ”

“ It isn’t a great team to-day judged by Yardley standards, but it may be a great team on Saturday. It’s a well-rounded team, a team of hard-working, willing players, every one of whom is ready to do his utmost—and a little more—for the school the day after to-morrow. And now it’s up to the school to help the team, fellows. I want you all to believe in it, to stand back of it, to encourage it by thought and action every minute between now and the last whistle on Saturday. ”

“ In my last year we had a new superintendent who was interested in athletics, and we then had teams in basketball, football, baseball, and track.
Right. At that time they reorganized a girls’ basketball team which had been dropped two years before, and they made me jumping center. Although our high school was not a large one, we played some very good games, and managed to make a good record for the four years. In my last year we had a new superintendent who was interested in athletics, and we then had teams in basketball, football, baseball, and track. ”

“ As you know, professor, the inter-scholastic series begins next Saturday. Rockville Academy will send its team over here to play the first game of the season. If the regulars meet them it is bound to be a bad day for the High; the school team, so far, has failed to win a single victory, while the 'Hopes' have not met with a single defeat. ”

“ Some of the high school fellows do smoke, but they aren’t the ones who make good at athletics or anything else. You’ll see them hanging around the Station Store afternoons, when the fellows that make the team are out training. Why don’t you eighth graders come out and watch us sometimes, by the way, instead of going right home after school? You’d get lots of pointers that would help you. You have your own teams, don’t you? If not, why not organize some? You ought to have three or four in this grade, for you’ll be in the high school next year and you ought to be in training. ”

“ But even if such application should be made, and were it accepted, as it probably would be, neither school can play upon any team it organizes any man who had any connection, either in a playing or a managing capacity, with the football eleven of last fall, except, possibly, at the special request of the head-master. ”

“ Soon his team goes forth against an outside team, and now the honor of the whole school is in his keeping. What pride is his! As he puts on his uniform, he strips off his isolated personality and stands forth as the trusted champion of an institution. Nor does this august supersession of the private consciousness by the public arise in connection with sports alone. As a member of the school, a boy acts differently from what he otherwise would. There is a standard of conduct recognized as suitable for a Washington School boy, and from it his own does not widely depart. ”

“ He comes to college fresh from his school day experiences ready to conform himself to the traditions and customs of the new school, his college choice.
The world will never again look quite so big to a boy as it did then. Entering as boys do, in the fall of the year, the uppermost thing in mind, outside of the classroom, is football. Sometimes it is the uppermost thought in the classroom. What kind of a Varsity football team are we going to have? ”

“ If we didn't like the way it ran things we could take our happy young college life up by the roots and transplant it to some other school, where the football team moved around the field like a parade. Theoretically the Faculty could sit around and take our best players off the team, as fast as we developed them, for non-attention to studies. ”

“ You’ve got to begin with the School, Myers, and work down to the team. If the School hasn’t got the right spirit, the team won’t have it. And that’s why I try to get as many fellows out for football at the beginning of the year as I can. ”

“ There is nothing else I would rather see than when our boys are in their goal line defense, and they have supreme confidence they will keep the opposition from scoring. Every boy is taking it upon himself personally to do what is necessary to stop the ball carrier from scoring. When a coach has a team thinking [13] like this, he will have a winner, and the boys will be winners when they get out of school. ”

“ As children grow into the tendency to enjoy group or team play, the competitive spirit becomes very strong, and games in which the players work in competitive teams, as in relay races, or in opposing sides, as in Bombardment, may serve the purpose of continuous mutual interest. As a rule the competitive spirit is strong in games in the line and group formations, and, indeed, is usually the basis of such formations.
For all formations pupils should be trained to move quickly. ”

“ These men have carried into their new positions a knowledge of the game which has been eagerly received wherever they have gone. Every preparatory school now has one or more instructors, a regular portion of whose labors is the instruction of the pupils of the school, in football, and the development of a team which shall properly represent the school on the gridiron. By this method the game has gained myriads of friends and adherents who in their college and university courses keep up their devotion to football. ”

“ You’ll have the start of a good team, for only six of the fellows who started the game to-day graduate this spring. Then there’s a lot of good material on the Second team. And right here I want to thank the members of the Second for the way in which they worked with us. ”

“ It is important that you explain to them just what you are trying to accomplish, how long it will take, and why you are doing it in your particular manner. The administrators and the administration must understand the value the program has for each boy who participates, and the ways the program can benefit the entire school system. Therefore, before a coach accepts a particular position he should give considerable thought to the administration’s philosophy, attitude or point-of-view toward the football program. ”

“ But it is perfectly just to say that no Captain of an amateur eleven or of a school eleven should allow any man to play on his team whom he does not believe to be a bona fide scholar who means to remain in school until the end of the year—a scholar who has come to learn what is taught in the class-room, not what is practised on the football field. ”

“ He learns not only to take his place in the game, but to judge his companions by their special ability and by their value to the group, rather than by clothes or personal feelings or other outward and incidental facts. All these things the team game teaches as no mere instruction, whether in school or home, can teach. ”

“ At the University School there are eight football elevens which practise daily, and from these very good material is to be had for the first team. At South High, on the other hand, there is a scarcity of players for a scrub team, but the men are all heavier than the University players. ”

“ The pupils of each aisle constitute a team. Those in the front seats are Number 1, those next behind them, Number 2, and so on back. The teacher calls some number. The pupils having that number race to the board and write thereupon the name of some river, returning to their seats. The first one back wins one point for his team. The game continues until all the numbers have been called, the team having the most points wins. ”

“ It was a rule, too, that no girl could play without a physical examination as to her fitness, and the Central High team—the champion team of the school—was selected from among the strongest and best developed girls. ”

“ Pupils will quickly learn that a firm disciplinary policy, a helpful watchfulness, can be maintained without carrying with them an aggravating scrutiny of conduct. Friendship and good fellowship can be revealed through teamwork in the building of a character as well as in the coaching of a football team.
Some of the best chums are those who occupy the relation of player and coach. When on the athletic field the coach exercises rigid mandatory control. The onlooker may suppose that he is something of a tyrant, but the boys on the team know better ”

“ He goes on, determined to play a better game, and realizes he must hold his place at the training table by hard, conscientious work.
One is not unmindful of the traditions that are centered about the board where so many heroes of the past have sat. You have a keen realization of the fact that you are filling the seat of men who have gone before you, and that you must make good, as they made good. Their spirit lives.
The training table is a great school for team spirit. To have a successful team, any coach will tell you, there must be a brotherly feeling among the members of the team. ”

“ A few more remarks in conclusion of what was said in the Department last week concerning preliminary football work: Remember that by practice alone can a team perfect itself; and consequently every manager should try to arrange as many practice games as possible for the eleven under his care. After the school season has fairly begun, and the neighboring schools have their elevens somewhat organized, it is always possible to arrange games with outsiders. Thus when the championship contests come along the players will be accustomed to games with strangers. ”

“ One little group of seniors was especially busy, cooperatively busy one might say. This was one of the overflow divisions of eight students which made up a class in Virgil. In all of the athletics of their three years in school they had been taught the value of team work and coöperation. One bright student had conceived the idea of bringing this same team work into the Virgil class. It worked beautifully. Sixty lines of Virgil was their customary assignment. Sixty lines divided among eight students, as everybody could see, was about eight lines per student. ”

“ About this school you will see the automobiles parked for blocks; and, of course, the youngsters who drive these cars are the social leaders, they run the school affairs, and they get the girls.
The schools are given up to athletic excitements and “assemblies”; “Aud Calls,” the students term them—that is, calls to the auditorium. They come to practice cheering; they follow the cheer leader, who tells them: “That wasn’t loud enough. Now give one for the team.” The young people come out from these affairs trembling with excitement, and they have no mind for their studies the rest of that day. ”

“ If the school president or principal is skeptical, consider the position seriously before accepting it. Building a championship team is difficult enough with full cooperation from everyone, but it is an impossible coaching situation without the administration’s full support and confidence. ”

“ If grades are low, get behind the team in every way and you can usually swing the backward students into line on their studies, even when there is no danger of losing place because of lame lessons. Move the players around and use substitutes frequently so that no one will fasten on a given post as personal property.
A strong man can organize the town folks so that 534their support will be always helpful. In any case the appearance of a milk and water policy must be avoided.
COMMENTS Athletics is as difficult to manage as a church choir. ”

“ The students always play the association game, and it used to be the ambition of every youth to get the ball, and carry it down the field all by himself, while the audience cheered, "Bravo, bravo!" So the faculty arranged matches with the crews of visiting British warships, and from sad experience the college learned the value of side plays and frequent passes, and began to see dimly that good football is played, not with the legs and mouth alone, but with the head, and that hard team-work is better than grand stand exploits. ”

“ There is never anything like a team event to arouse the enthusiasm of students.
A tug of war team consists of but four men, to be sure, but at that they are supposed to be, and generally are, the strongest men in the college, and so students of all classes looked to them for holding up the glory of the college. ”