What does it take to be a winning youth coach? Listen in as Clint Schumacher shares coaching stories and discusses his journey to becoming a successful youth coach.

Clint was raised in Nashville, TN. Clint is an Attorney and now lives outside of Dallas, Texas. He has been coaching flag and tackle football over the last 7 years. Clint played football, basketball, and track growing up. Clint is married and has 3 sons, ages 12, 10, and 7.

Twitter: @J_Clint


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Coaching/Leadership Quote

‘Put aside your positional authority to demand, and think about your relational credibility to expect’ – from 2 Timothy in the Bible

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Coaching your own Kid

Clint shares a story of being too hard on his own kid

My ‘Cringe’ Moment

In dealing with an assistant coach that was being too hard on his own son, Clint regrets he ‘let that go’ and didn’t correct that situation with assertiveness

My ‘Ah-Ha Moment’

Learned from Dave Cisar: Conducting everything at a much faster pace. Teach against air and instead of running a play every 2 or 3 minutes, run 4 plays per minute.

Teaching Children & Keeping it Fun

Break everything down into small pieces – A football stance can be broken down into 5 micro-steps. Use visual images, using kid’s terms, so it’s easy for the kids to remember.
Clint will bring out a boom box for a segment of practice to lighten the mood and keep things fun.
Speedball – Wide open, fast-paced frisbee football – This is also great ‘hidden conditioning’

Coaching Resources

HUDL – Clint uses HUDL to teach, as well as to share the game films with parents and grandparents
Dumcoach.com – Great coaching forum
Coachsomebody.com - Football forum
USAFootball.com – Videos and drills

Discipline

2 things they punish whole team for:

1 – Lack of effort
2 – Jumping offsides


Everything else is case-by-case. Making kids sit out is one of the most effective punishments.
HUGE IDEA #1: Criticism sandwich – Sandwich criticism between praise

Reward and Recognition
HUGE IDEA #2:

Practice Warrior – every practice they have a blue jersey that is lettered ‘practice warrior,’ and whoever is best teammate get to wear jersey next practice
Helmet stickers – If team accomplishes all 4 goals for the game, everyone gets a sticker:

1 – Win the game
2 – Score 26 points
3 – Hold the other team to 7 points or less
4 – Win the turnover battle
Individual stickers: ‘hidden victories in a game’:
1 – Pancake block
2 – Anyone who forces or recovers a fumble/interception
3 – If a back carries out such a good fake that he gets tackled


Character quality of the week – 4 kids win each week – the 4 kids that win that week are captains for the game

Inspiring Story

Clint prayed in the offseason for some kids who came from tougher backgrounds so they could impact them – he has 2 kids on this year’s team that they have really poured into

Winning

Winning is important – but not because of the scoreboard – more importantly it is a grading of your process

The One that Got Away

Clint’s 2nd grade flag-football team just lost a heartbreaker on a last second play – but he was extremely proud of the great way they competed

Coaching/Leadership Motivation

Books: ‘Inside-out Coaching’, ‘Season of Life’ – both by/about Joe Ehrmann
Quote: ‘Put aside your positional authority to demand, and think about your relational credibility to expect’ – from 2 Timothy in the Bible

Parting Advice

Many kids will remember their first coach – are you going to feed positive qualities into them, or negative ones

Interview Links / Promotional Partners
HUDL

 
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