Survival Guide for Coaching Youth Football

You volunteered to coach the football team, but are you ready? How will you teach the fundamental skills, run effective practices, and harness the energy of your young team? Fear not: Survival Guide for Coaching Youth Football has the answers.

Longtime coach Jim Dougherty teams up with Brandon Castel to share experience and advice you can rely on from the first practice to the final game. It's all here in the drills and the plays: evaluating players' skills, establishing realistic goals, offering in-game coaching tips, and making the practices fun

Develop your team's offensive and defensive skills for all positions with the Survival Guide's collection of the game's best youth drills. For plays that young players can actually run, flip to the Survival Guide's offensive playbook and defensive alignments. And to get the most out of every practice, follow the ready-to-use practice plans.

Turn to the series that has already guided thousands of first-time coaches in basketball, soccer, and softball to rewarding and productive seasons. With Survival Guide for Coaching Youth Football, you're already well on your way.

Jim Dougherty knows how to develop talent across many levels. Along with coaching the Hilliard Davidson varsity baseball team since 1985, Dougherty has served as the athletic coordinator and football coach for Hilliard Weaver Middle School since 1997. Prior to that, Dougherty held the same position at the former Hilliard Middle School. He also teaches physical education and was named Ohio’s Middle School Athletic Administrator of the Year in 2005. A graduate of OhioWesleyanUniversity, he served as the captain of both the football and baseball team. Coach Dougherty lives in Columbus.

Brandon Castel is a sports writer for the-Ozone.net and has made a career of covering college football. While a student at Ohio State, Castel served as the sports editor of The Lantern and today he covers the Buckeyes on a full-time basis for BuckeyeGrove.com. A former football player himself, Castel also fills much of his time as a coach in Columbus with the Skyhawks youth sports program. His writing has been featured by Yahoo! Sports, The Sporting News, and USCHO.com.