What Perfect Execution Looks and Sounds Like!

The USMC Silent Drill Team! Note that their bayonets are fixed throughout!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv_Q9MtfRHk&feature=related

This is the result of practice, error, fix-it, repeat it and get better over and over and over again! Gang, this is why your coaches emphasize the small things and we go out on the field and repeat, repeat, repeat! Teamwork is a beautiful thing when everybody gets it!! Spring Ball begins this coming month!!

Opportunity Season Continues on The Island

The 2009 Football Spring Frenzy Camp took place at John Barsby HS this past April 18/19th weekend. The over 100 kids in attendance siezed the opportunity to get better in dramatic fashion. Everyone had a lot of fun as well and it was a good weekend for catching up with old coaching friends from the region. A huge thanks again to Coach Dino Geremia from UBC as he took the time to come over and give back to the feeder system that helps fill their locker room year after year. Video hi-lites (Varsity and JV) of the camp can be found on the NDSS Football Blogspot: http://www.ndssfootball.blogspot.com/

The 09 opportunity season continues this weekend with 7 on 7 at Barsby followed by another 7 on 7 gig up at Ballenas HS on the May 2nd weekend. Following the next two weeks, it is in to Spring Ball.

All the best to AA ball this spring!!

AA Song's Of The Week 04/15-04/22

Agent Orange, a classic 80's punk band rips a super version of the original. Close your eyes, take a deep breath and visualize your ideal of a perfect offensive or defensive game.....get those mental hi-lite video's rolling. Spring Ball in a few weeks... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiobsK63SwU

Spiderbait's great cover of a classic! Better than the original with a bit of red-neck twang in it.

Good song for up-tempo offense,defense and building some scrappy attitude!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtqjmuUaYXA

DSV Tutorials Make-em a Priority!

Hey AA and Tier 2 Coaches,

You should have by now been mailed the details for the first on-line meeting for the DSV software. The first meeting was tonight. It was awesome!! The package is a hundred times better than it was last year. Some very interesting details:

• You can cut-up your own and an opponents film by offense, defense and special teams. (Basic Feature). Advanced Features (super easy to use)
  
• You can organize game video any way you see fit categorizing it for instance into various types of play, runs over 10 yds, blitz, cover packages etc.
  
• You can also build a cut-up file that makes your team's hi-lite video as you go so at the end of the year you just burn it on a dvd and bingo, there it is.

• You can put together player hi-lite videos and put them on viewing lists/e-mail lists for every college and university south of the 49th.

• You can e-mail clips and hi-lites of your team and your opponents to your own team rosters/e-mail lists.

• You can access your opponents and your own video from any internet connection..you don't need your home computer specially formatted.

• When you cut-up your game video, you can have the screen split into multiple angles per-play.

In short, it is totally awesome.

There will be more upcoming on-line meetings and tele-conferences this spring.

We all by rule have to upload our spring game or last year's final game this spring. Be sure you don't let yourself and your team down by not mastering this software.

Again...much easier to use and much more versatile than last year.

AA Song of the Week 05/04-0=12/04

The Story Of My Life

Life Goes By So Fast! It ain't no dress rehearsal! Make 09 your masterpiece cus regret is the most expensive thing in the world!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuKOc_Mpumc

Getting The Hay In...NOW!

AA Varsity Football in BC is at a historic cross-roads. The league is finally not the entry point for new programs and it does not this yer, begin with programs who are languishing for whatever reason. Over the years there has been some justifiable complaints (and some not so justifiable)of the league being a bit of a second-class Rodney Dangerfield "no respect" citizen in BCSSFA.

Well, here we all are as programs on the eve of Spring Ball. What we do, what we begin to establish as a collective culture will have a lasting impact on how we are perceived and thus treated in the years to come.

One area where we can have a decisive and immediate impact is the administrative area. When our teams are properly registered on-line, photographs submitted, and as the season begins, our game video uploaded and stats entered, then we legitimize ourselves as a serious league and entity within the provincial culture. If we wait til the last second and then participate ad-hoc, then nothing has changed and our critics become well fed.

So here is the deal:

On-Line Registration

Everybody has the ability to register now. The codes are the same as last year.

Most programs have already conducted the bulk of their registration or are soon doing so. Coaches would be well served to get the bulk of their registration information posted ASAP. If as a coach, you don't have positions and jersey numbers figured out yet, you can enter "Open" and a generic number for your players. We used 0.

By simply getting this task done en-masse, we are in position to tidy it up as required and springboard into league play.

Team and Player Photos

Take your team, program and player photos the day before you play your spring game/jamboree. We have done this the past six years! It is hugely helpful as you can submit your team photo/roster for the BCSSFA playoff program in June; upload your player photos on to the net (as everyone has already had the bulk of their registration data posted!!); distribute your team and player photos to each respective participant and his family; and you have current photos for media distribution, game day programs, sponsors etc. Again, stuff you do in June is stuff you don't have to do in September.

Think about it, June, July and early August is when you have time to mess around with such logistical housekeeping. You certainly will not once 24 August rolls around. Again, having this data up and sent out far in advance is not only professional, it is massively helpful to have it off of your plate come Fall. Wouldn't you rather be working out a game plan with your coaches and team than being a clerk?

Lastly, there is your responsibility to the collective. AA ball is a stakeholder in the big mix. If we seek to advance an idea at the provincial table, we will be far better served to have our collective act in order. To be taken seriously, we first need to take ourselves seriously. Beyond this principle, things are a whole lot more fun and productive when they are organized and universally participated in. As well, our league executive does yeomen's work and they sure as hec can spend their time better than chasing around the sick-lame and lazy who won't "get with the program" as they should.

Coaches, you are pioneers this year. Lets get it right from the git-go.

Get that registration up ASAP.

Tier 2

Tier 2 this year will pick-up where it left off and as 08 wound down, it was surely headed in the right direction.

The group of Prince George teams that participated are now in AA and will be replaced by several of the Kamloops/Vernon schools who are on a rebuild. Abby Collegiate moves to AA and Nanaimo District fills their place. Also add Burnaby central and Moscrop to the mix.

Burnaby Central
Moscrop
Howe Sound
GP Vanier
Mark Isfield
Gulf Islands
EJ Milne
Nanaimo District
Alberni District

Based on school size and strength of program my early glance into the crystal ball has the following programs neck and neck at the top:

In no particular order:

Nanaimo District, G.P. Vanier, Mark Isfeld, and Moscrop.

Just below and always dangerous lies Gulf Islands. EJ Milne could be the sleeper of the bunch in 09.

We will all get a better idea of the tier 2 pecking order when the Island tier 2 Jamboree takes place Sat. 23 May at Nanaimo District HS.

A big difference maker for all involved will be the extent to which each program has been approaching "Opportunity Season". There are QB Camps, Skills and Development Camps and opportunities for 7 on 7 play this spring. There is also in-house development opportunities in the weight room and beyond for players and coaches alike.

From what I can tell from this vantage point, some programs have been far more active than others. In the end, those who don't succceed in this league can only look in the mirror and ask themselves if they really did everything they could to put their young men in a position to compete.

It is not too late to get started!