Youth League Football: Coaching and Playing [Paperback]

Tom Flores (Author), Bob O'Connor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1993 | Series: Youth League

The text presents drills and coaching suggestions for every position on the field while emphasizing that youth football's main objective is fun. Safety, agility, line stance and pass rush fundamentals are also included.

Product Details

• Paperback: 173 pages
• Publisher: Masters Press (September 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 094027969X
• ISBN-13: 978-0940279698
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.2 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,853,298 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

59 of 64 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not QUITE worthless., September 1, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Youth League Football: Coaching and Playing (Paperback)

Perhaps I'm a little too picky after reading "Coaching Youth Football: Defense" and "Coaching Youth Football" by John T. Reed, in which coach Reed spends ELEVEN PAGES diagramming and describing a single offensive play to make it easier for a beginning coach to teach to the players. I expected Tom Flores to know the difference between youth league (which throws perhaps two passes a season) and the NFL (which passes 65% of the time). Much of this book is taken up with pass defenses and passing techniques, but precious little is devoted to important things like teaching a center to block while snapping (barely covered on one page, no diagrams) or teaching a guard to line up square but still pull out for a sweep hard and fast (ignored by Flores). There are a number of the pictures where the kids used as models are in incorrect three point stances (butt too low, resulting in lost power out of the stance and poor balance. As a new coach in a brand new league, with no experienced coaches to assist me, this book was a complete waste of my time, and contains some dangerous information (Never, EVER teach a player to tackle by putting his facemask on the numbers of the ball carrier; he'll either break his neck or the runner's ribs! The mask should be on the ball!) Some of the drills are effective, but poorly explained, and not diagrammed very well, making this book a poor choice for a beginning coach. All in all, I'd say save the ten bucks and find Coach Reed's web page. (Hey Amazon.com! You should really get Coach Reed's books, they're the best youth football books I've ever seen!)

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A very basic guide for beginning coaches., December 5, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Youth League Football: Coaching and Playing (Paperback)

There was a sufficient amount of useful basic information but the delivery could have been improved with additional graphics. The information was reasonably arranged but readability could have been improved. It would have been useful to show some typical offensive and defensive schemes for youth football together with some basic plays. The book is reasonably priced and useful for a beginning coach.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Authors completely unqualified to write this book., June 8, 2003

By 

Derek A. Wade "Derek A. Coach Wade" (South Prairie, Washington. USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Youth League Football: Coaching and Playing (Paperback)

Mr. O'Conner is somewhat ill-informed, both on the mechanics of coaching youth football and on the reality of my relationship with Jack Reed.

Since he is one of the authors, I am unsurprised that Mr. O'Conner leapt to defend his material when his errors were pointed out to him. Unfortunately, he is still wrong. The stances shown in the book are incorrect no matter what level you are playing at. The player's backside is too low in the three point stance shown on page 66. In fact, the player looks like he's sitting on his haunches with one hand on the ground.

The picture of 'press technique' shown on page 127 is also wildly inaccurate. The pressing player is standing almost straight up, and any receiver would clear the line easily against the ungainly bail technique being shown.

With all due respect to those august coaches with 80 years of coaching experience between them, how much of that experience was gained coaching players of ages seven to seventeen? I am comfortable in agreeing with Mr. O'Conner's statement; yes, I DO know more about coaching youth football than he does. I have done it. He, judging by this book, has not. I will defer to his experience at coaching in the NFL, but not when coaching players from high school on down. NFL players range in age from 20 to 41 and generally have experience measured in decades. Youth football players range in age from eight to eighteen, and may have experience measured in days or even hours when you see them as a coach. You cannot expect them to be able to execute NFL-style tactics and techniques.

Youth football coaches, and even high school coaches simply do not have the hours to practice that college and NFL coaches do. Youth practice planning is about TIME MANAGEMENT, and must be RESULTS ORIENTED. This means that you need to maximize your efforts where they will do the most good for your team.

When a former NFL coach recommends, and here I quote directly from page 31 "...by working MANY HOURS with a receiver a quarterback can learn to anticipate how the receiver gets open against certain types of coverages..." it is obvious that these two authors have never coached at the youth level.

Youth coaches don't have "many hours" to spend on their passing game, even if passing was an effective way to move the ball at that level, which it is not. Typically a youth coach has his players for five to seven hours a week, and also typically completes 20-40% of his passes. Mr. O'Conners and Mr. Flores are recommending that youth coaches waste "many hours" of practice working on a part of the game with a 20-40% success rate!

Playing in the NFL is a JOB, and coaches have 45+ hours a week to work with their players on pass patterns and reading defenses. Youth football, and this cannot be stressed enough, is NOT THE NFL! Five to seven hours a week is not the same as 45 or more.

Frankly, while Mr. O'Conner might not like this review, the bottom line is that the information I received from Jack Reed's books was infinitely more practical than the airy speculation of a coach more used to adults than children. I recommended Reed's books in my previous review for one reason: Reed's material works, probably because, unlike the authors of THIS book, Jack Reed has been on a youth football field a time or two, and has seen what does and does not succeed at that level.

I have the utmost respect for Mr. O'Conners and Mr. Flores when it comes to coaching football in the NFL. For the youth level, however, their information is simply not accurate.

Good Luck.