Lift-A-Thon & Meet Your Team

As a head coach for a six-man football team, one of my many jobs is to generate a sense of excitement not only for the players but for the immediate community and also to reach out to others so they too can be excited about the team and the upcoming season. Six-man football in Texas involves high scoring, fast pace, and high intensity games. To get the games to these levels the players not only run off their will power they run off the energy created in the stands. So getting the surrounding communities excited about the team will aid in player enthusiasm, player recruitment, and build the school pride.

One way to get the community excited about my team is by having a “Meet the Team” event, for example if our mascot was a Longhorn, the name of the event would be “Meet the Longhorns” before the season begins. A week or so before the first game, gather the whole community together at the football field so they can meet all of the players that are going to represent our town. At the event we will have a cookout, go through some quick drills, and also play games that will get everyone, not just the players but also the people of the town involved. The cookout will feature foods like, hamburgers and hot dogs. A few of the drills we will go through will be having the players run routes and the quarterbacks passing them the ball, and a walk through of some simple plays we will be running throughout the season. The games that will be played are, we will get town’s people and mix them with some of the players and play a game of touch or flag football. Also we will have different gender and age category’s to compete in a Kick, Punt, Pass competitions with the winners receiving a free T-shirt, gift card, or free admission to the home games for the season. At the event people will have the opportunity to donate money to the school for the program, so we can buy better equipment, this being weight machines, jerseys, pads, helmets, and cleats. This will help get people excited about the upcoming season, and help inspire the players to do their very best to present out town to be the very best!

Another way I believe to get my team out there to the community is to have a “Lift-A-Thon” to help raise money for our program and also to show the people how strong their players are. The money will help raise money to get more and better equipment for us. In the Lift-A-Thon, the athletes will first go around the community and ask the people for donations, they can either donate a certain amount or donate however much the athlete lifts. They will be lifting the bench press station out in public for all to see, so everyone can come out and watch to see their accomplishment. For example, an athlete gets a person to donate $1 per pound they lift, and on the date already predetermined, they lift 100lbs the person will donate $100. They don’t have to donate $1 per pound, they can do it however they want, but it is up to the athlete to go out and get as many people involved as possible. This will not only help raise money for the program, but it will also help get the whole community involved and for them to see how well the athletes are doing health wise. By seeing how much the athlete’s care about the program is will also just like the “Meet the Team” hopefully generate excitement around the town and get more athletes to come join the program.

These two ideas are based on getting not only the players excited about the program and the upcoming season but also the community, not just the parents of the players but everyone else who lives around the area, also it helps build school pride and will make the players want to give their best for the town and school. These also don’t only generate that excitement going into the season but also it helps build the community as a whole and shows how much every person in that town cares about their team representing them.