hello and welcome to another episode of the scoop i am your host marcy campion and so you'll be discussing the topic of training for high school football in season and for the offseason we will cover the main points about the importance of training and how both training and practice could reduce injuries discussed to discuss this topic mr plaque joins me for this episode mr black has been a teacher here at p t a chest for eleven years and is currently a special ed teacher he is also the head football coach for the pierce entreprise school team has our football program for the past two years and this year the team went to the semifinals but before being the head coach here p t h s had previous experience he spent five see this as five seasons as an assistant coach for peter's township he was an assistant coach at bethel park he spent two seasons as an offensive coordinator at rin in five years being the head coach at south fayette so let's start with the first question why did you decide to become a football coach i think it dates back to actually the original time was just helping my little brother my my dad was always a coach help my little brothers baseball team out kind of like that and then i always say i wanted to be a teacher i love teaching i think coaching is just an extension of that so truly everything i've done helping coaching i've coached basketball coaches baseball and football for over twenty years now so it's something it's something i just think it's an extension of being a teacher and it's something i found very rewarding so with football there's obviously the practices that there would you say long like two plus hours it's all different we have a schedule that we follow i'm on they practice is a little bit shorter it's more in the weight room we get a good bit of lifting done monday we introduce our upcoming opponent on on monday as well through film sessions and and whiteboard activities and then we're probably on the field on monday for probably a little bit over an hour that's about it  and then tuesday and wednesday or big days are usually around two hours maybe a little bit more special teams wednesdays thursdays a little bit shorter because you're preparing for this we don't wear lower pads more pair for game on friday so we're usually  hour and forty minutes and saturday it's more film work in the weight room and j v game so truly tuesday and wednesday or big days we're looking at two plus hours in your response you said something about like special schools or teams how does a practice change for a school like bethel park one of our big rivals to me and like i said you know we have a framework for how we go through each week obviously if we're playing a team like a bethel park or the next week we play mount lebanon or upper st clair some of the points of emphasis may change for us we still get into a practice we still cover individual work you know each player plays a position often its position on the fence will you know work on skills for for their trade and then from there we may do we do group or if we're playing a team that runs the option which can be tricky at times we may spend a little more emphasis on group work towards that if we spend if we're playing a team the throws the ball a lot we may spend a little bit more time in group or that has our kids working on their pastor ops or coverage or or you know when we have our off and throw get some so just spend on who we're playing we do have a framework from week to week teams are better in certain aspects we may more attention to detail maybe there so like you said the schools with different schools it may change a little how did your practices change for the semifinals the framework change because we truly don't find out who we play until monday night we're normally you know we've already started working on the following week saturday and sunday coaches we have a game plan done on sunday monday we should the kids well we don't know who we're playing until monday evening so obviously we're down in the office downstairs until three in the morning then we came in the next day because we had to get everything ready for the students tuesday at two thirty right after school so the frame or change a little bit got a little become compressed but it was still you know tuesday we still went through all the stuff we normally would do just for the coaching staff we had a lot of work to do up front and that time we had an idea of who were playing one of two teams so we prepare for both of them but it was just things got a little compressed for us but the kids for the most part was how would you say practice and conditioning different for us it truly doesn't like we do some conditioning in the sport we see in the spring part of our program a great deal of it in the summer getting ready to get out on the field with pads but the way we practice we try to be very up tempo the kids are moving all the time we have a segment timer that keeps me on chipping on track because sometimes i'll let piers a practice go over but if we have a segment time or that big horn it goes off so i know it's time to go to the next period so usual practice is probably around twenty to twenty four periods each wanted to be like between five and ten minutes so when we're moving t next one i try to tell coaches be upbeat energetic get the kids moving around we don't like anybody standing around so we try to use our practices as conditioning at the end of the practice our kids are exhausted so we don't have to go out and do the you know the running afterwards we've done everything to one practice and over kids are moving so now there are some days we're like mondays we don't do a lot of that so we will left will be on the field to be more cerebral we talking about what the team's going to do and these are our checks here's a we're going to run our base runs so monday we will do a little conditioning towards the end of practice but tuesday and wednesday we were just trying to fly around keeping a lot of that practice if you condition like you said during the season how would you get the football players to condition offseason how would you how do you can do yeah sure you know we have a lifting program we actually started last week our weight training program at the end of every you know we're working with weights not right now but in this couple  as the weather breaks were able to get outside and then the as we get closer the summer maybe late april may we start working some conditioning because it's at that time where we start going against other schools we work something called seven on seven more just like  passing camps so we're out the kids are running around so obviously they're going to be doing that physical activity we want them to be conditioned to run and so we'll start conditioning at that time in summer we have a huge conditioning program that  running program in the first day we run six three hundred metre runs and there are times so are our bigger guys are often civil and they have to run at a certain time our line backer is full backs hundred they change they go maybe for three hundred that get you to twelve hundred and then we run a couple to hundreds and then it goes down to three hundred two hundred one hundred and then it goes down to fifty s on the field so so everything to get in shape and get down to smaller faster and we of less break in between so before you know we want to three hundred we may have like a minute half two minute break in between or run a fifty's you know we're about thirty five seconds  between so we just try to predict is that way you were talking about the writing in the times that like you're often spend more time different and then your middle men or time different practice different for people for their positions conditioning is different because everyone's bodies built different you know we have a kid that can play wide receiver and run down the field we're of a guy that plays left tackle for us that that's not worth skill set is his skill set is using leverage and pushing people around right so so we do we do understand that we have different talents for that practice conditioning is that what you're asking about like like the years or the conditioning part like would practice itself be different for different positions and the football oh yes y sort every practice were we split our team in half an hour older kids will work on their off and still go our line will go with the lambing coaches or quarterbacks come with a running back so and everyone works on their particular position down or they're working on running game they're working on pass protection so yeah everyone's a little bit different than our young kids are over in a defensive side and they're working on the backs working on their back pedaling their change of direction linebackers are working on which is part of this condition everyone's working hard on practice they're all sweating they're all working through everything so everyone's little bit different takes a lot of time and we have eleven coaches so we have guys are able cover all these guys and they're expected to put these guys through work out now like thank you are saying the different people go with the wide receivers and then the quarterbacks right yes how is how do you set goals like would you set goals individually for the entire group how would you set goals for the football players so you have you have individuals for every player you sit down and talk with them about that before the season the team has goals you know are we going to call for champions do we want to go play at heinz field is this a state championship team and it boils down to we have to win friday night so our goal as a team is to go want to know each week it's a simple as it can be we can look to forehead so that's our team goal but position was you know effectively so there's a goal throughout the program and throughout the season but you know the overall goal as a team is you want to know each week what we do of individuals you know our quarterbacks we want them to achieve at this level we work on that individual sessions the practice group sessions coaches talk about that on saturday and sunday over the weekend we do love it when we're in here at the five forty five six am on both those days we like to meet because we have families i think anything you do you got to be goal oriented and it there for some time with us you're saying the one zero mentality for a game on friday that you very very play the team does your let's say you were to lose would you practice change on monday  to help achieve better things than improve upon the next opponent again the framework doesn't change however the emphasis does even the game if you win if you beat a team you always look at what  do well what can we improve on even in a when and especially in the last we all now understand that so we'll take a look at those points of emphasis on what we can improve on and we try to corporate in the practice of next week if there's something we think we can do better at we take a look at it is it the coaching staff or we're not really understanding how to how to implement something are there different ways of teaching that individually do we need to get together as a group and go and draw some work and then we hit the door  teams so you know there's always a way to get better these are the things that keep me up at night i lay there in bed i think about how can we get better at this can this go to work on this do we have to work together so yeah even in a one or a loss the framework stays the same however there's different points of emphasis that we can build on to get better now there are two separate teams there's the j v in the varsity is there different emphasis for  goal is they are saying over the last couple years we have been i don't know if it's fortunate or whatever it is but we've had a lot of freshmen and sophomores that start for us on a friday  night so whether you're a ninth grader tenth grade lonely or two you have opportunity to play friday night and be a be a part of that for those that don't they may be deemed j v players we truly look at it as a of course i don't want peace on playing a lot on friday night to go into a game saturday morning same with saturday i don't want them playing monday so we had enough that we could have breaker team up into three parts and you know as a j v player if you're j v player that doesn't play a lot of friday nights it's development it's vellum and for you we practice all week and a lot of times they end up being our scout players or the running the other teams oftens or the running the other teams defense but on wednesday you know those big days of practice wednesday we do a j v j v wednesday where instead of them being do work on their individual skills we'll get the j v office together because all week they've been running late but the parks off and yeah so we're on our off and with what the will be going again so so we spent some time with them on wednesdays preparing them for their saturday j v game because the most you know they work on individual but they get lumped into being the scout team office in the scouting defense but we do spend time with them on wednesdays preparing them so and saturday the kids have fun they're out there in their time to to to run the ball and score touchdowns and things like that are not being tackled by a twelfth grader and eleventh graders so they really enjoy that and we as coaches were there to watch and we've there's been multiple occasions at all different schools of the net where you look at a kid on a saturday morning say maybe we can use them maybe you can play special teams for us on friday nights so it's fun watching those games and those kids have fun with it but they are developing the j v program is a great way to do that and like you were saying how some freshman or sophomore would play on the varsity team would you say that it's more and hopefully that comes through watching the other kids but it's obviously better play on friday night that me that get that out in the open you a couple thousand people in the stands on friday night saturday afternoon there's a couple hundred if that but up it's still point football is still saying the peers are the same same twelve minutes four quarters and you play to win so you know her so we're not talking about the j v in the varsity and the training in the conditioning do you practice or condition to help prevent certain injuries that the the football players would most likely see so we do a bit of both practice and conditions i think those are two different things  the hamstrings for a while so you know we do a lot of preventive stuff right now in the spring and everything practice wise you know i know the big emphasis has been on concussions in all sports there's a lot of sports that  number was have more concussions and football but we do know football is deemed to be the most physical we're the most quitman so there's things with helmets helmets have come a long way in the last ten years we've changed our way of tackling seattle seahawks have really come out with a way of tackling that a lot of teams are going on and you know it's called hawk tackling and there's a bunch of different ways but you know we just we tracked in the air here we don't put our head across the body we're looking at trainers that's the problem everyone wants to be they don't want to miss practice they don't want to go to train or a coach you know my leg did you see the trainer know you have to go see the train or you know you're missing practice if you go see the trainers lot of things they can do before practice a lot of rehab before practice and after practice and that's another thing kids don't want to be there an extra twenty minutes but if they have an injury and if they want to play friday night they've got to get that taken care of so so if it's a lower body injury you know the rehab before practice and after practice are trainers they do a great job they're still able to get out on the field if it's a bad injury maybe they can work just do some individual skills skill work and maybe not be involved in teams we know they're not going to play friday night but we still want them out there being condition and doing things so every injury is different the length of it and how much you're able to ward off someone's missed a week we bring them back slowly there's a protocol for that where they make out there for a little bit which i keep helmet awful so if they get out there and they have a helmet on some kids try to sneak in so we take their helmet off from there out there the rest of the pads and they work on everything they get their conditioning done but they're not allowed any physical activity so there's just a bunch of different ways look at that  injury is and time for you said before that you kind of hold some kids back from varsity because they might be tackled by preventing them from getting tackled by a another senior where it would try injuries change from j v to really excited and pumped up and if they want to hit each other we make a very conscious effort to put seniors and juniors together software's and freshman together you know what we get we don't ever want to put a smaller ninth grader is a big before we have a kid this ready to play on friday night he's a freshman and he's got to work against other seniors so it just depends on who that player is but we understand if we have a young freshman that's one hundred forty pounds we're not going to put him up against a two hundred forty guy but injuries i think they're consistent j v varsity seventh eighth grade youth football i think you see the same type of injuries so with now with conditioning when someone has an injury do they can dition different like how do you prevent in conditioning for the injury so when someone's injured how do they condition and again that is at a lower body injury where they're unable to run well then they would just get sprint they just you know they bring him back slowly and that i think of an opera body injury again they get rehab for that before practice and then they should be out there conditioning running just staying staying in shape so it all depends on the sea the lower body injury they can be in a weight room with us and their upper body workout upper body injury maybe they can do to lower body so it all depends what it is in the trainers will take your you know they're on able to do a bench coming on the show today to discuss the topic of training for high school football during the season and during the offseason we covered the main points of the importance of training and injuries from football finally i'd like to thank the media department