No Ordinary Rookie

Twelve [12] year old, "J. Hawk", is no ordinary rookie. When I say rookie, I don’t just

mean a rookie for the Southwest Little Rock Saints – Hawkins is a rookie to the sport football.

That’s right. This is Hawkins first year, first time, ever playing the game of football.

Hawkins came in and quickly impressed the coaches with his athletic capability. While this is

only the beginning for him, he’s already showing signs of being a great athlete.

During week fours Tuesday warmups, the seniors (the 11 and 12 year olds), had to show the

other players how to do jumping jacks synchronized. Coach Damien pointed out that Hawkins is such a rookie, that he didn’t even know how to do a proper jumping jack. But as

expected of him because of his self-determination, he caught on so quickly, that I didn’t even notice that he couldn’t do a jumping jack to begin with.

Observing Hawkins since he’s first joined us, he’s going to be an all-around, high performing

athlete. Not only does he have the athleticism, but he has the personality traits as well. These traits include:

1. Inner desire to succeed

2. Willingness to take criticism

3. Humility

4. Trust in the process

5. Resiliency

6. Strong sense of motivation

After numerous times of missing catches, he said, “Coach, put me back at the front of the line. I’m gonna catch the ball this time.” The coach let him skip back to the front of the line, coach threw the pass, and Hawkins caught it just like he said he would.

** The clip at the end of the interview video, is the pass he said he would catch.

There’s no doubt that Hawkins has the inner desire to succeed. It’s also safe to say that he’s a

natural goal-setter as he challenged himself by requesting to be put back at the front of the line saying he would catch the ball.

I’m personally looking forward to seeing the athlete Hawkins develops into as well as the young man he grows to be.

xo, Coach P.

7-on-7: Lookin' for Great Times!

What is the point of 7-on-7? Simply put - It's a teaching tool. It can be considered an evaluation and chemistry building. It gives a chance for the teams to work on skill building, conditioning, helps determine areas of improvement, as well as see where strong points are. It gives the players a feel for how a real game will be, which is especially great for the players who may be new to the sport.

Below, you can read about what the Southwest Saints President, Coach Branch, and the CEO and Head Coach, Coach Franks, is expecting out of this seasons 7-on-7 games.

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Coach Branch

“I’m expecting for these young men and young ladies to perform, one…to give it their all. But have fun. It’s a great indication of how the season is going to go. I say it’s an indication, but that could go either way. It gives us a chance to access those young men and young ladies, it helps out with the boredom of just having Spring practice. It gives them something to look forward to, and it kind of teaches them what’s expected when Fall comes around. So I’m expecting us to have some victories. I would love to go undefeated, however, it’s more so of just having fun. Just introducing those young men and young ladies to the game that haven’t been around it, and getting reacquainted and reintroduced to football because some of them have been in baseball and/or basketball…So, I’m looking for great

times.”

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Coach Franks

“We’re going to use 7-on-7 as a teaching tool. We’re going to use it to get our conditioning, to getting our kids working together, to teach team cohesiveness, to teach them to chase the ball, and you know... how to take pursuit lanes. That’s what we’re really going to concentrate on – how we can get better using the 7-on-7. And naturally, our receivers and our quarterbacks will get some needed work.”

Inhale Confidence. Exhale Doubt.

I go back and forth between each groups, capturing the moments, drills, and skills, while also learning more about the game of football myself. Each practice, I always find a lesson that coaches are teaching the kids (even if the coaches aren't realizing they're spitting gems themselves). 

My personal favorite lesson from Monday's Spring practice was Coach Damien and Coach Kevin working with the QB's instilling how important *confidence* is.  Especially since they are the ones that basically set the tone for the play. Being able to see the "vets" who have previously played the QB position display a certain level of confidence compared to the the players who have never played the position, amused me. The "vets" who are use to playing the position, was confident in the call "Down, set...HUT!", their stance, and with their pass-

offs, while the players who were new to the position weren't as confident. It was apparent. Coach Damien and Coach Kevin quickly realized this, and started talking to the players in their group about confidence.

Coach Damien building up confidence!

To sum it all up, the biggest thing I personally took away from the lesson on confidence is: Confidence is created inside yourself by believing “I can do this”. A lot of wise words were said, as well as demonstration on what a confident stance looks like as well as a confident call. The players are learning, and while there’s a lot of learning to do - we WILL get there. Because in the words of Coach Damien - “Everybody got to work!” Yeeaaah! xo, Coach P #ShesOnTheField #DeeperThanSports