In future if you have some questions that you would like addressed- put them them in the comments at the end.
Bob Anderson- Williamsfield HS
Bob is retired as boys basketball coach at Williamsfield. At a school of only 89 students, in 45 years, his teams won 732 games along with numerous tourney and conference championships. His 1997 team made it to the Elite 8.
Mike Cooper- Ottawa HS
Mike is the retired Athletic Director at Ottawa HS. He was varsity girls basketball coach for 22 years, as well as sophomore football coach for many years. He was inducted in the the IBCA HOF.
Tim Engebretson- United HS
He was varsity head football coach for many years at United HS. He also has coached basketball at different levels. His 2005 team won the Illinois State Title, and Tim is in the Illinois Football Coaches' HOF as well as the United HOF.
Greg King- Sterling HS
In his head coaching career at Sterling, his football teams went 78-28, and had 10 straight play-off appearances and 5 conference titles. In addition to his success as a football coach, he was inducted in the Illinois Athletic Director's Association HOF.
Mark Massey- Clinton HS
Mark was the head volleyball coach at Clinton for 38 years. His teams won 818 games, and twice took second in State. He is in the Iowa Volleyball HOF and Clinton HS HOF.
Thom Sigel- Rock Falls/Rock Island HS
Thom coached basketball for 32 years. His teams won 502 games, and he has the distinction of winning the State Title at both Rock Falls and Rock Island. Thom is in the IBCA HOF.
Mike Tracey- Alleman, UTHS, Moline HS
Mike coached football at Alleman, UT, and Moline for over 20 years. By most, he is considered the premier football coach in WB6 history. His teams won 140 games, and twice finished second in State. Mike is in the Alleman HS HOF and the Illinois Football HOF. He was also selected Illinois AD of the Year.
Tom Wierzba- Farmington HS
Tom coached basketball for 38 years, coaching 26 years at Farmington. At Farmington, his teams won 7 sectionals and made 5 trips to State, including a third place and fourth place finish. For his career, his teams won 611 games. In addition, he coached softball at Farmington for 10 years- going 225-50. His softball teams won the State title twice and took fourth once. He has been inducted into both the IBCA and Greater Peoria Sports HOF's.
My Question
It is sometimes a tough decision for the head coach to decide whether to bring freshmen or sophomores up to the varsity level. What were your thoughts about moving freshmen or sophomores up to the varsity?
Mike Tracey- Alleman, UTHS
The issue of bringing up freshmen and sophomores to a varsity squad is very touchy. To me the times I did that were based on desperation or overwhelming talent by the younger players .The desperation occurred more so than the overwhelming talent.
I made it a point to not rush into that type of decision. I would always talk this over with our staff to see where people were on this issue. If I was the only coach that thought this was necessary, I probably would make it anyway. However, a consensus was best to handle this possible touchy move.
At this point, I would contact the parents or guardians to gauge their feelings about the issue. Ultimately, the parents were the deciding factor. I was very fortunate to have parents that agreed with the decision to move their son to the higher level of football.
Lastly, I would speak one on one with the player with nobody else around. I would lay out where I saw the player on our squad. I tried to honestly share with the player what we thought his role would be at the varsity level. I shared my vision with the player of the benefits of this move. I also tried to lay out clearly the possible negatives.
In a perfect world, I would have liked to not have to make this early advancement for players. However, I was fortunate to have the kids that we did move handle it with maturity, toughness, and a very positive attitude. I do prefer the idea of keeping individual classes together as much as possible.
I felt in my role as a head coach it was obviously my duty to put together the best squad we could. This certainly is not a unique idea. Every sport is different. Every school and community are different in this situation. I often referred back to a simple philosophyl learned at one of the many football coaches clinics l attended:"Play the players. You can't go wrong putting your best kids on the field who give you a chance to succeed."
Mark Massey- Clinton
This can be a tricky situation, although it doesn’t always have to be. And to be clear, it can be a very different situation whether it’s a girl or boy sport. Physically and athletically high school girls at freshman or sophomore level can be very comparable to juniors and seniors, with boys usually a much bigger gap.
First of all, I think it’s important to know what if any school‘s policy might be? When I began coaching way back in the late 70s while the school did not have a specific policy, it certainly wasn’t encouraged. That is definitely changed over the years. Regardless, I think it’s important to keep the appropriate administrator, usually an athletic or activities director informed ahead of time. No administrator that I ever worked for wanted to be blindsided two or three days after something it happened or a decision had been made and they knew nothing of what it going on. Coaching a fall sport. I had the advantage of an entire summer of summer leagues and team camps to observe kids and I could focus on somebody that was in that possible area. I might be able to tell the A.D. maybe casually while playing golf or some other situation hey, that sophomore Debbie is looking pretty good. She might be able to help us. I think he always appreciated that and would usually just respond. Well she’s pretty good. Just let me know.
As a program and as a staff, I think it’s important to lay out with the parameters and protocols are for moving kids up. Again as the head coach, I wanted to get input from freshman and sophomore coaches and even middle school coaches… so is the kid as mature emotionally as they are physically? Often these kids are used to being the most important piece of the puzzle. How will they react on the varsity if they’re not? What kind of cohesiveness exist on the varsity level, will a freshman or sophomore upend that? Playing time and substitutions are very different with basketball and volleyball. For the most part, I did not want to promote a kid to the varsity unless they were good enough to start, or pretty close. And throughout the summer, you could get a pretty good idea of that, on more than one occasion I had some of my best juniors and seniors come up to me and say, hey, you’re gonna bring so-and-so up to the varsity, aren’t you? I’d say why I don’t know? If they say well, yeah we need her, that made things a whole lot easier.
Again, each sport is different, but I figured I had the whole summer, as well as previous seasons to observe, for the most part a kid would finish the season where they started, if they started the season with the sophomores, they were gonna stay with the sophomores. Begin basketball might be different because you can just sort of tweak the minutes, in volleyball if you bring a kid in in the middle of the season to start or to play a lot, it’s gonna be perceived that they’re taking a kids spot. I think that can create more problems than it’s worth
The one question that my first athletic director would always ask before a kid was promoted to varsity was, will she help you win? What match that you might otherwise lose which she put you in a position to win? And I think that’s a good way to frame it.. again in volleyball it might be different come tourn time… especially if it had been a season of loan numbers it might be relatively easy to have a couple of sophomores or even freshman. Sit on the bench. I can remember one occasion specifically, where a freshman who I don’t think had played any varsity competition was on our roster at the end of the season and during the tournament, went in and served late in a state tournament match… and we did end up winning that match and no small part because of her serve.
So the final analysis, I think get input from all coaches on the staff, even from opposing coaches that might give you a honest, credible opinion, but make the decision yourself. I guess one final thought is do the experimenting in the summer or the off-season, perhaps have several freshman sophomores that play with an older group and then go back and play at their age level so that it’s not a big thing to be moving them back-and-forth. Unless there’s a really special circumstance, I don’t think you want to be in a situation where during the season a kid starts on the sophomore level moves up to the varsity level, feels good about the promotion and then has a bad gamer match, and they’re moved down to the sophomore level again. That can be devastating and I think should be avoided at all costs.
Mike Cooper- Ottawa
If I were going to bring up a freshmen or sophomore, I needed to make sure they were both mentally and physically able to play with kids who were older and not with their classmates. If that was going to be a problem then I didn't bring them up. When I brought up a player I tried to do it at the beginning of the year so there was no question what level they were going to play. I hated to bring up a player mid-season and disrupt team chemistry. I would also not bring them up if I wasn't going to play them. In fairness to them if they are up a level they are going to play or I would leave them down.
It is a tough decision to make bringing a kid up unless they are head and shoulders above the player they are replacing.
Thom Sigel- Rock Island
We often brought sophomores up to the varsity, and a couple of times a freshman. This was usually based on need for that particular year. We had rare occasions to bring a player who maybe wasn't ready, but was in a year we weren't as deep. And we had some players who could have been evaluated to having varsity talent, but with a deep roster of upperclassmen, they waited until their junior year to contribute as a key varsity player. One difficulty I found was how to handle the philosophy of playing seniors vs. the philosophy of playing younger players over the veterans if they are equal. If we had decisions to make in these situations, we would try to predict how they would progress throughout the season and what was going to give us the best chance to be at our best late in the year.
So that is a background that shows we didn't actually use any system in how we dealt with those decisions. If a player was going to be in a situation to help our team as a consistent contributor, then we would bring them up. Ideally, they would be a full-time varsity player and practice with us every night. However, there were a few times a player may also play in sophomore games to help get them game minutes. Some of these situations could be difficult in trying to do what is best for the program while also trying to keep in mind the player's development as well. I also believe coaches need to look beyond the physical development of young players. We would evaluate the make up of players because young guys will face adversity being brought up, so they need to be able to handle that and grow from it.
It seemed we were more apt to bring freshmen up to the sophomore level. This seemed to be evident as my career went on, and I suppose that could be attributed to players being more prepared for high school basketball with more AAU experience when they are younger.
Evan Massey- Galesburg
It is not that making any personnel decisions are easy. I don't think the general public understands how much time a coach spends weighing decisions about personnel. The good part of all the summer camps, summer leagues, and summer tourneys is that as a coach you feel that players have many more opportunities to play and be observed. It is not a two weeks in November decision.
In girls sports, it seems that the difference physically between freshmen and seniors may not be as great as it in boys sports, so movement in girls is alot more likely to be successful.
If we were going to bring a freshman or sophomore to the varsity, I wanted to do it right from the beginning of the season. It was a decision that I usually got input from the entire staff but always got input from the varsity staff. I never wanted to move a player up and then later back down, so we wanted to be sure of the movement.
I felt my job as varsity head coach was to put together the best varsity team possible. My criteria was that if a freshman or sophomore was one of the best 7-8 players, and would play regularly, they would be moved up to the varsity. I talked one on one with the underclass player, and told them what their role was going to be. I tried to emphasize their main job as a freshman or sophomore was to be one of the hardest workers in practice to earn the respect of the older players.
I tried to talk with the junior or senior leaders about why I was making the decision. The point I wanted to make with these leaders was that if we could help these freshmen or sophomores become the best players they were capable of- it was going to make us stronger. I honestly don't remember any juniors or seniors who were regulars on the varsity who did not appreciate and accept frosh-soph age players.
Later in my career I realized that I should have been bringing up a freshman or sophomore who was in the top 12 to our practices. My approach should not have been just focused on producing the best varsity team but producing the best varsity practices. Those freshmen/sophomores would have made our varsity better in practice and practicing with the varsity would have made them better. They should have practiced with us and if not playing enough minutes on the varsity, played in the FS games. Too often at Regional or Sectional time, I would realize that I wished a certain freshman or sophomore could be used in the varsity rotation, but they had not practiced with the varsity. As a result, they were not comfortable enough to step into a varsity game and the varsity players were not ready to have them step in.
I have no doubt that it makes sense to bring talented underclassmen up to the varsity. Not only does it challenge them to develop their skills more rapidly, but it helps them understand how to practice and our cultural expectations. The connection between players and varsity coaches, if playes are on the varsity more than two years becomes stronger.
Greg King, Sterling
I would not have a problem pulling up an underclassman but certain criteria would have to be met. First and foremost in football they would have had to be physically ready to play against young men that were 2-3 years older than them. If pulling them up would potentially be a severe physical mismatch they would stay down. Secondly it would have to be a position of need. I believe that you win games with seniors. These young men in most cases have put in 3 years of hard work…they need to be given opportunity after opportunity to prove they cannot do it. If those criteria have been met then there is potential that the underclassman could be moved up.
The key to being able to do this is that the same fundamentals all levels are being taught. The use of the same drills and techniques are important as well. As far as schemes are concerned the lower levels will be the base and as you progress more and more things can be taught and added.
Tim Engebretson, United
We really didn't like bringing up freshmen.No matter how talented they may be. It was hard to justify bringing someone to the varsity level with no significant H.S. experience.We also felt it was a gamble to put that pressure on a 14 or 15 year old. If they didn't respond well, how was it going to affect them in the future? Of course there are some athletes whose talent almost demands that they are promoted. We did bring a few freshmen up. Sometimes it was necessary because of injuries and sometimes it was just that raw talent. I would say we had mixed results when bringing up freshmen.
Bringing up sophomores was a very common practice for us. They had well over a season of experience and we really had a better gauge on how they would handle it. We felt sophomores were much more equipped to handle varsity situations both mentally and physically. In our small school setting it was often necessary to bring up sophomores.
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