Iowa's current recruiting ranking according to this site

I think I'm in the minority about bowl games, the more college football there are, the happier I am. Sure most of them are meaningless but it's still fun for me to watch my team one last time even if it's on a skating rink.
I like a balance. If you have 5-5 and 6-5 teams getting to bowl games, it's too watered down. But getting a lot of 7-4 and 8-3 team matchups is good football.
 
You really believe that? I guess my experience is with club soccer as opposed to AAU basketball, but as both a former varsity coach with 20 years of experience at that level, I can tell you hands down that at least in terms of soccer, high level clubs have far superior credentials, methodology, and ideology then high school coaches.

That's not to say that there aren't good high school coaches out there, or bad club coaches. Part of being a good coach, IMO revolves around the opportunities to continue to develop as a coach as well as the educational made available. Not a shot at Varsity sports at all, but how difficult is it to attain a coaching authorization (for someone who works outside the school system) in the state of Iowa and then once its acquired there is very little required obligations to get it renewed. In addition to that the authorization isn't even sport specific. Outside the varsity level there are a magnitude of different levels of licensing one can attain to continue to move up the ranks, and those opportunities are not for everyone, and are difficult to progress through.

I was a successful high school coach with multiple state appearances and a number of conference championships, but but I found that there was very little out there in terms of resources or opportunities to improve my craft. The amount of resources and licensing opportunities available to me at the club level is exponentially greater than anything that was made available to me through the IAHSAA, NFHS, or IAHSSCA.

As someone who left the varsity level for the club/academy experience I think both are fantastic options. However, at the same time I think there are a lot of "great" coaches at the high school level, who owe their success, in large part, to the club/AAU system and the number of athletes who participate in club/AAU sports.
He has no clue. He's not been involved with coaching and especially not club sports.
 
I think I'm in the minority about bowl games, the more college football there are, the happier I am. Sure most of them are meaningless but it's still fun for me to watch my team one last time even if it's on a skating rink.
College football is about the only major sport left where you still have a good chance to end your season or career with a win, and despite modern progression there will always be a certain romanticism to that.
 
College football is about the only major sport left where you still have a good chance to end your season or career with a win, and despite modern progression there will always be a certain romanticism to that.
I will repeat my position, likely for the 100th time...Ask the kids if they want to play in a bowl game regardless of records. 99% would say, “bring it.” Ain’t about you, fans. Get over it.
 
He has no clue. He's not been involved with coaching and especially not club sports.

Been a HS coach and club coach. Basketball and soccer at HS and soccer at club level. There isn't time on the AAU part. The concept of "team" at the aau level is lacking. Players care much more about HS as a team. Individual, it gets pretty one-dimensional. You honestly think a coach getting kids once or twice a week compares to 5 days? Honestly?
 
Been a HS coach and club coach. Basketball and soccer at HS and soccer at club level. There isn't time on the AAU part. The concept of "team" at the aau level is lacking. Players care much more about HS as a team. Individual, it gets pretty one-dimensional. You honestly think a coach getting kids once or twice a week compares to 5 days? Honestly?

Coaching has as much to do with the coach as it does the athletes in the system. You could be a hall of fame coach, but if you're not getting the right athletes into your system there's a good chance your not winning games. That's what sets aside club from rec players.

You are correct about the concept of "team" meaning more at the high school level than at the club team. That said the club player's in general are more dedicated to the sport than rec players. So while your questioning whether a kid gets more from a coach once or twice a week at the club level as opposed to a varsity coach who has access to them 5 days a week I would say the club level player. Because the club level player is working with his coaches year round as opposed to a varsity coach who has to get a team ready to compete 3 weeks into the start of the season, and most likely that varsity coach is centering training sessions, not around challenging the best players, but rather getting the rest of those players to play at a higher level.

My rebuttal to your question about a coach getting kids once or twice a week compares to a coach having access to them 5 days a week, would be would you rather have a team of club level players making up a varsity team or recreational level players. I think as a varsity level coach you're lying to yourself if you were to claim anything other than club level players. Good coaches can get individuals playing as a team within a system, but I'd venture to say state championships are won by the teams made up of club/AAU players as opposed to teams made of recreational/Y-league players. The teams winning championships are the ones in which good HS coaches are getting club level talent fed into them.

SO to answer your question... I would say that the kid who is seeing his coach 1-2 times a week and playing year round, against better competition, is getting more out of it than a player who plays 3 months a year but practicing daily. As a varsity coach I always believed that the off season is when players get better, because it was about player development while the season, as you said, was about building up a team. I firmly believe that the club level coaching is more valuable because of the focus on individual development. I would say it's easier to plug talented players into a system than it is to develop those players therefore I give the nod to the club coaches.
 
Coaching has as much to do with the coach as it does the athletes in the system. You could be a hall of fame coach, but if you're not getting the right athletes into your system there's a good chance your not winning games. That's what sets aside club from rec players.

You are correct about the concept of "team" meaning more at the high school level than at the club team. That said the club player's in general are more dedicated to the sport than rec players. So while your questioning whether a kid gets more from a coach once or twice a week at the club level as opposed to a varsity coach who has access to them 5 days a week I would say the club level player. Because the club level player is working with his coaches year round as opposed to a varsity coach who has to get a team ready to compete 3 weeks into the start of the season, and most likely that varsity coach is centering training sessions, not around challenging the best players, but rather getting the rest of those players to play at a higher level.

My rebuttal to your question about a coach getting kids once or twice a week compares to a coach having access to them 5 days a week, would be would you rather have a team of club level players making up a varsity team or recreational level players. I think as a varsity level coach you're lying to yourself if you were to claim anything other than club level players. Good coaches can get individuals playing as a team within a system, but I'd venture to say state championships are won by the teams made up of club/AAU players as opposed to teams made of recreational/Y-league players. The teams winning championships are the ones in which good HS coaches are getting club level talent fed into them.

SO to answer your question... I would say that the kid who is seeing his coach 1-2 times a week and playing year round, against better competition, is getting more out of it than a player who plays 3 months a year but practicing daily. As a varsity coach I always believed that the off season is when players get better, because it was about player development while the season, as you said, was about building up a team. I firmly believe that the club level coaching is more valuable because of the focus on individual development. I would say it's easier to plug talented players into a system than it is to develop those players therefore I give the nod to the club coaches.
What about the players who have access to the coach 24/7 all years around? Who also have access to the college atmosphere 24/7? I'm thinking Conner, Patrick, and who else. I think they should be able to understand the games better than the Club players or Rec players. Does the family counts? If the player have parents or siblings who had an experiences playing in college basketball. I'm thinking McCaffery's the perfect examples. How many anothers do we have, Jabo is another perfect example. Jabo grew up in family atmosphere where his brothers were the stars at Wisconsic those are the players I want on my team. I think I would rather have these players than the club players because they learned from someone in the family. If I'm the coach , I would look into the family background. They could have someone who had an experiences playing in high school or college or even pro teaching them or passing on the skills.
You just never know how valuable these players are.
 
What about the players who have access to the coach 24/7 all years around? Who also have access to the college atmosphere 24/7? I'm thinking Conner, Patrick, and who else. I think they should be able to understand the games better than the Club players or Rec players. Does the family counts? If the player have parents or siblings who had an experiences playing in college basketball. I'm thinking McCaffery's the perfect examples. How many anothers do we have, Jabo is another perfect example. Jabo grew up in family atmosphere where his brothers were the stars at Wisconsic those are the players I want on my team. I think I would rather have these players than the club players because they learned from someone in the family. If I'm the coach , I would look into the family background. They could have someone who had an experiences playing in high school or college or even pro teaching them or passing on the skills.
You just never know how valuable these players are.
Totally agree, but those are also kids that are probably going to be in the club circuits as well. Like I've said over and over, I have nothing against high school coaches. My argument was based on whether I "honestly think a coach getting kids once or twice a week compares to 5 days?".

But in those examples you listed it still comes back to those players having year round access to those individuals. I think my biggest issue with the high school sports, and I should have included this in my previous post, is the fact that they have limited contact to coaches during the offseason outside of summer workouts. I totally understand the why the rule is in place, but it severely limits what coaches are able to do during the time they can spend with them.

I definitely think this plays into clubs favor as a lot of them have staff that is made up of high school coaches as well as college connections. The second biggest factor in my decision to leave varsity for club (family/kids were my first) was the fact that I could specifically be around kids that wanted to play year round and work with them year round. My success wasn't based on kids buying into the system, or having to recruit my players every year because other coaches from the same school didn't want to share athletes, or worry about having enough bodies coming in each year to replace those graduating.
 
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Not a shot at Varsity sports at all, but how difficult is it to attain a coaching authorization (for someone who works outside the school system) in the state of Iowa and then once its acquired there is very little required obligations to get it renewed.
I don't think it's overly difficult in Iowa. I work outside the school district and there are some hoops to jump through but nothing crazy.

Iowa also has now what's called a "transitional" coaching authorization for non-teachers that helps new coaches get started quicker. Basically it lets you start after passing the background checks etc. and is valid for a calendar year. One of my assistants got offered the job last minute and within about a week and a half he was coaching. For the transitional auth you have to:

1) Take the NFHS online concussion training (takes about 45 minutes)
2) Take the Iowa DHS child abuse mandatory reporter training (an hour or 2)
3) Take the Iowa DHS adult dependent abuse mandatory reporter training (an hour or 2)
4) Apply for the cert online and answer a few questions from the material (pretty easy)
5) Submit an FBI background check
6) Go to your local PD to get fingerprinted and send it to Des Moines.

My assistant had everything done in half a day and what took the longest was waiting for the background check and state approval. My school also does it's own background check which I'm sure is required by law for every school. For some reason you have to have CPR training to get your full license, but they don't require it for the transitional.

After you finish it you're licensed to coach for a calendar year. During that you have to get your full coaching authorization which is a 55 hour community college class and it's good for 5 years.

As a HS coach myself I'm fine with the transitional as long as it's someone you know pretty well. It's great for college kids looking to get into coaching.
 
Totally agree, but those are also kids that are probably going to be in the club circuits as well.
Agree in urban settings, not so much in rural areas. Where I live the nearest AAU basketball club is 65 miles away and they're terrible. The very few kids in this area drive 80 miles one way to the next closest club.

We have no USSSA or legion ball at all here, Brandon/Sioux Falls is the closest club level baseball and that's 70 miles away. Soccer just got added as a sport two years ago here, outside of school it's completely nonexistent. The only thing we have in this area is AAU volleyball, but that's basically each town having a team that competes in tournaments and is coached by parents. There's no centralized AAU volleyball club in the area.
 
Thx for the thoughtful response and basically agree. I've coached teams of ready made players and teams without. The former is much easier, though bad habits can come about such as even with FM's kids. I did leave out I coached bb btw. With soccer, my main complaint about many club team players is that they "love" the ball. Possession and foot skills are obviously better. I've made a modest living on crushing teams with a lot of club players at the larger city/school level. I teach D and can shut down about any team with good pressuring D with help. Where the club-dominated teams fall apart is on our counterattack with speed and hard hitting fill in the gap. Our teams are taught when to overlap from the back when the situation calls for it and an offensive player drops back to cover the D. Speed in the backfield is a great offensive weapon. The club dominated teams just don't seem to catch on. Guess I'm not a purest. We do concentrate on D. Going back to BB, AAU doesn't tend to concentrate on D.

It seems to me that at the BB level, many AAU players just don't gel as well.

My son didn't play AAU but was a starter on a larger IL school that played a number of names you'd recognize from the Big. They would do well against the Chicago city type schools and then struggle with the farm boy teams who were playing straight up Defense.

I do get what you are saying though. My most talented team was very fun to coach. However though we kept winning the opponents (even the lower teams) elevated their game like crazy for the chance to knock us off.

In the end though, my preference is to coach speed and hard working ethics over AAU alone.
 
I don't think it's overly difficult in Iowa. I work outside the school district and there are some hoops to jump through but nothing crazy.

Iowa also has now what's called a "transitional" coaching authorization for non-teachers that helps new coaches get started quicker. Basically it lets you start after passing the background checks etc. and is valid for a calendar year. One of my assistants got offered the job last minute and within about a week and a half he was coaching. For the transitional auth you have to:

1) Take the NFHS online concussion training (takes about 45 minutes)
2) Take the Iowa DHS child abuse mandatory reporter training (an hour or 2)
3) Take the Iowa DHS adult dependent abuse mandatory reporter training (an hour or 2)
4) Apply for the cert online and answer a few questions from the material (pretty easy)
5) Submit an FBI background check
6) Go to your local PD to get fingerprinted and send it to Des Moines.

My assistant had everything done in half a day and what took the longest was waiting for the background check and state approval. My school also does it's own background check which I'm sure is required by law for every school. For some reason you have to have CPR training to get your full license, but they don't require it for the transitional.

After you finish it you're licensed to coach for a calendar year. During that you have to get your full coaching authorization which is a 55 hour community college class and it's good for 5 years.

As a HS coach myself I'm fine with the transitional as long as it's someone you know pretty well. It's great for college kids looking to get into coaching.

I didn't realize it's now a 55 hour class as it was probably no more than 20 hours when I got mine initially in 1997 and had continuously renewed it ever since. I think as a coach that has his authorization (for high school) I find it disappointing that to renew no additional training is really necessary aside from the staying current with mandatory reporting and first aid/CPR if your using the online rules meetings to meet the other requirements. I say disappointing because I think it's a disservice to the players that no additional learning is necessary as long as you go through the proper channels needed to recertify.

I really wish that there was a progressive system, like a licensing system where additional education/training was needed to work your way up from say a C license, to a B license, etc... I'm just a firm believer that a coach owes it to his players to continually learn new things and advance as a coach rather than simply repeating the same ideals year in and year out, and through observation I see way to many coaches simply going through the motions year in and year out.
 
Agree in urban settings, not so much in rural areas. Where I live the nearest AAU basketball club is 65 miles away and they're terrible. The very few kids in this area drive 80 miles one way to the next closest club.

We have no USSSA or legion ball at all here, Brandon/Sioux Falls is the closest club level baseball and that's 70 miles away. Soccer just got added as a sport two years ago here, outside of school it's completely nonexistent. The only thing we have in this area is AAU volleyball, but that's basically each town having a team that competes in tournaments and is coached by parents. There's no centralized AAU volleyball club in the area.

Great and valid points. I guess growing up in eastern Iowa I've always taken the club scene for granted. I tend to forget how spread out parts of northern and western Iowa are. Soccer is definitely one of the varsity sports with a heavy club influence. By that I mean if your going to state year in and year out you're getting your players from feeder clubs. Very rarely do you see programs with player bases made of recreational programs make an impact at the state level and if they do, it's shortly lived with minimal continuity.
 
Thx for the thoughtful response and basically agree. I've coached teams of ready made players and teams without. The former is much easier, though bad habits can come about such as even with FM's kids. I did leave out I coached bb btw. With soccer, my main complaint about many club team players is that they "love" the ball. Possession and foot skills are obviously better. I've made a modest living on crushing teams with a lot of club players at the larger city/school level. I teach D and can shut down about any team with good pressuring D with help. Where the club-dominated teams fall apart is on our counterattack with speed and hard hitting fill in the gap. Our teams are taught when to overlap from the back when the situation calls for it and an offensive player drops back to cover the D. Speed in the backfield is a great offensive weapon. The club dominated teams just don't seem to catch on. Guess I'm not a purest. We do concentrate on D. Going back to BB, AAU doesn't tend to concentrate on D.

It seems to me that at the BB level, many AAU players just don't gel as well.

My son didn't play AAU but was a starter on a larger IL school that played a number of names you'd recognize from the Big. They would do well against the Chicago city type schools and then struggle with the farm boy teams who were playing straight up Defense.

I do get what you are saying though. My most talented team was very fun to coach. However though we kept winning the opponents (even the lower teams) elevated their game like crazy for the chance to knock us off.

In the end though, my preference is to coach speed and hard working ethics over AAU alone.

Great post. Especially the part about the importance of speed in the back and getting your defense to attack as well. Can never emphasize enough how big of an advantage it is when you force your oppositions strikers to defend. I also definitely agree about club players "loving the ball" too much and them being suspect to the counter attack. I've been fortunate enough to coach for a medium sized club so that rather than having a player pool and kids playing for 5-6 different teams at the same age group and then trying to merge them in with each other as they get older and having to build chemistry, I've been fortunate enough that my core of 8-9 players have played with each other year in and year out since they were under 6. It's a huge advantage because the kids are best friends off the field and truly do play for each other rather than the name of the club on the front of the jersey.

I coach U11's and U12's as well as working with our junior academy players under the age of 8. I'm fortunate enough that I've coached the U11 group since they were 7 and will continue to stay with them as they progress. That's why to me education is so important. I struggled dramatically early on going from the varsity level down to the Jr. Academy level, but as they get older and the more time I spend with that age group the more I enjoy it. From a varsity standpoint, my biggest pet peeve was when kids get to high school and lack fundamentals. I figure this way I have access to them year round and can improve the skill at an early age to make HS soccer in the community that much stronger in the future, rather than strictly trying to improve 1 varsity program.
 
The sweet 16 basketball drought is as much about bad luck as anything, in my opinion. I think I'm done trying to come up with any other explanation. You usually need at least a couple studs (typically top recruits but not always) and some luck to make a final four or win a big ten title. But making a sweet 16 is just about consistently making the tourney, which Iowa did a ton under Davis and now with Fran. Make the tourney enough and you should fall into one here and there. Iowa had a lot of tough breaks in those second round games - too many 1 seed match-ups. The only loss under Davis during his sweet 16 drought that stood out to me was the 4/5 game with Wake Forest and Rodney Rogers. That felt like a toss-up at worst.

It's part of the reason I'm a Fran fan. He has Iowa set up to consistently make the tourney and he plays a fun style. He's had teams plenty good enough to get into the sweet 16. Yes, it is maddening as Hawk fans to always fall short, but some of this has been as much about bad luck as anything.
 
The sweet 16 basketball drought is as much about bad luck as anything, in my opinion. I think I'm done trying to come up with any other explanation. You usually need at least a couple studs (typically top recruits but not always) and some luck to make a final four or win a big ten title. But making a sweet 16 is just about consistently making the tourney, which Iowa did a ton under Davis and now with Fran. Make the tourney enough and you should fall into one here and there. Iowa had a lot of tough breaks in those second round games - too many 1 seed match-ups. The only loss under Davis during his sweet 16 drought that stood out to me was the 4/5 game with Wake Forest and Rodney Rogers. That felt like a toss-up at worst.

It's part of the reason I'm a Fran fan. He has Iowa set up to consistently make the tourney and he plays a fun style. He's had teams plenty good enough to get into the sweet 16. Yes, it is maddening as Hawk fans to always fall short, but some of this has been as much about bad luck as anything.
That Wake Forest game was a tough pill to swallow, almost as tough as 1989 NC State. Shot over 50%, may have been over 60%. Few turnovers, close game all the way, I didn't think either team led by more than six points. But Wake Forest matched us shot for shot, and they made a couple plays at the end. Having Chris Street obviously would have made a difference on Rogers, and Jim Bartles missed that game as well.

It was the final game for a lot of Hawkeyes who were the nucleus of the post Raveling recruit teams. Acie Earl, Val Barnes, Wade Lookingbill, Jay Webb, and Kevin Smith would all move on and give way to a nucleus of Kenyon Murray, Russ Millard, Jess Settles and Chris Kingsbury.
 
That Wake Forest game was a tough pill to swallow, almost as tough as 1989 NC State. Shot over 50%, may have been over 60%. Few turnovers, close game all the way, I didn't think either team led by more than six points. But Wake Forest matched us shot for shot, and they made a couple plays at the end. Having Chris Street obviously would have made a difference on Rogers, and Jim Bartles missed that game as well.

It was the final game for a lot of Hawkeyes who were the nucleus of the post Raveling recruit teams. Acie Earl, Val Barnes, Wade Lookingbill, Jay Webb, and Kevin Smith would all move on and give way to a nucleus of Kenyon Murray, Russ Millard, Jess Settles and Chris Kingsbury.
Good point about the '89 game. I almost don't consider it part of the drought since it was still in the glory years and coming off the tourney runs of the previous two years, but I guess I should. It's funny - I recall after that NC State game that it really felt like an end of an era, and even as a 6th grader I wasn't sure if Iowa could ever get back to that level. It felt like looking over a cliff when you looked at the roster coming back (and no Ray Thompson). Iowa basketball has scratched and clawed back since then, but it's always felt like being on loose footing since that loss in '89.
 
I really wish that there was a progressive system, like a licensing system where additional education/training was needed to work your way up from say a C license, to a B license, etc... I'm just a firm believer that a coach owes it to his players to continually learn new things and advance as a coach rather than simply repeating the same ideals year in and year out, and through observation I see way to many coaches simply going through the motions year in and year out.
I understand the sentiment for sure, but the reality is that it’s ridiculously hard to find any coaches to begin with, let alone make it tougher for them to stay on staff. There are 453 high schools in the state of Iowa, so you have 453 head coaches for every sport and 800-1,000 assistants. Something like what you’re suggesting just isn’t feasible. Ideally would it be a good thing? Sure. But you’re not going to get people to go along with it, they’ll just quit. The reason they had to introduce the transitional authorization was because it was so hard to get new coaches hired.

USSSA has an A, B, and C classification system for coaches that involves more complex clinics at each level. My experience is that guys go to the classes because they have to in order to do more things, not necessarily learn the game. Also, if you have someone who is dedicated enough to coach club baseball, that person is already experienced enough that they’re not really learning anything new other than maybe some practice ideas. The deeper game knowledge and strategy is already there or they wouldn’t be trying to coach at a more advanced club level to begin with.

Where coaching clinics and required continuing ed would really help is at the recreational level for parents trying to coach but not knowing what they’re doing. I have a couple sophomore kids out for baseball right now who can’t hit a ball off a tee. They either whiff completely or knock the tee over. Never seen anything like it at that age. Like, how do you consistently hit 6" over or below the ball 20 times in a row and never get lucky and hit the ball once? I don't get it. Can’t catch a ball hardly and they sure as hell can’t throw. But.... their class never had a parent who played baseball or even softball so every practice they had since kindergarten was a complete joke and now they’re screwed. Part of that is, yes, a problem with the local rec departments. But what do you do about it? As a high school coach with limited time, how many hours can I spend with sophomores trying to get them to at least make contact off a tee when they should’ve learned that at age 5? Especially since they’d be facing varsity level pitching if I ever put them in a game and there’s no way they’d be able to hit anyway. As much as I hate it, it’s a lost cause at this point because their window for learning the fundamentals is over and at some point they will quit because of no playing time. It’s a super vicious circle.
 
Great post. Especially the part about the importance of speed in the back and getting your defense to attack as well. Can never emphasize enough how big of an advantage it is when you force your oppositions strikers to defend. I also definitely agree about club players "loving the ball" too much and them being suspect to the counter attack. I've been fortunate enough to coach for a medium sized club so that rather than having a player pool and kids playing for 5-6 different teams at the same age group and then trying to merge them in with each other as they get older and having to build chemistry, I've been fortunate enough that my core of 8-9 players have played with each other year in and year out since they were under 6. It's a huge advantage because the kids are best friends off the field and truly do play for each other rather than the name of the club on the front of the jersey.

I coach U11's and U12's as well as working with our junior academy players under the age of 8. I'm fortunate enough that I've coached the U11 group since they were 7 and will continue to stay with them as they progress. That's why to me education is so important. I struggled dramatically early on going from the varsity level down to the Jr. Academy level, but as they get older and the more time I spend with that age group the more I enjoy it. From a varsity standpoint, my biggest pet peeve was when kids get to high school and lack fundamentals. I figure this way I have access to them year round and can improve the skill at an early age to make HS soccer in the community that much stronger in the future, rather than strictly trying to improve 1 varsity program.

Thx. AAU and clubs obviously improve skills. The but is that a number of those players are there because parents could pay for it and not necessarily the most athletic. I think you see this a lot in MLB now. Not that many black players. I cringe at the defensive skills of MLB now. I think some of it comes from lack of quick. Would be interesting to see how athleticism changed from the 70s/80s to now. Pitching is for sure faster unless there is a change in technology on how pitch speed is measured.

I somewhat cheat on fundamentals. Not having enough time to fix kids completely at HS I concentrate on skills at high speed.
 
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