I have tabulated the results of the survey. We received 33 responses and many comments. Thank you! If you don't know or didn't see, we passed out a survey at the banquet Monday night. The key was:
5 = Strongly Agree
4 = Agree
3 = Neutral or Don't Know
2 = Disagree
1 = Strongly Disagree
The survey had ten statements and space for comments. Below are the results and my impressions of what they meant.
Statement: My child had fun playing football this year. Average Answer: 4.78
Strongly Agree: 25
Agree: 7
Neutral or Don't Know: 1
Disagree:
Strongly Disagree:
97% of the parents thought their son had fun playing football, with one TBD. Since goal number one was to Have Fun, we feel pretty good about that outcome.
Statement: My child became a better player this year. Average Answer 4.59
Strongly Agree: 21
Agree: 10
Neutral or Don't Know: 2
Disagree:
Strongly Disagree:
94% of the parents thought their son became a better football player. Since goal #2 is Get Better, we feel pretty good about that outcome too. And from a coaching point of view, I thought the numbers were probably 38 out of 38 players. I can point out something about every single kid that improved versus the beginning of the year, though it may be harder to see from the bleachers.
Statement: I enjoyed the experience of being a football parent this year. Average Answer 4.66
Strongly Agree: 23
Agree: 8
Neutral or Don't Know: 2
Disagree:
Strongly Disagree:
94% of the parents had fun. As long as we're all out there together, I'm glad that we all had fun too.
Statement: Two squads with the same coaches was better than dividing into separate teams. Average Answer 3.72
Strongly Agree: 8
Agree: 15
Neutral or Don't Know: 3
Disagree: 2
Strongly Disagree: 4
I thought this was the most difficult question on the survey to answer. The parents that disagreed with the way we did it had comments like "Combining the teams to practice together in my opinion was very non productive" and "I would like to see the squads practice as separate teams and then scrimmage each other." One parent that liked the way we did it offered "It seemed better for practices, it allowed more per player play time; It may have decreased coach player time during practice" and "The two squads allowed for newer guys more time I think. It seemed to work out better for us as first year people." We had 23 responses (about 70%) that favored the way we did it. About 20% didn't care for it, and 10% were neutral. I had hoped that it would be a little more clear than that, but it is still a pretty substantial majority that thought it was a good system.
I have many more thoughts about this system and what worked and didn't, and I will write an entire post about it shortly. I want to meet with the coaches first to de-construct the season and get their impressions.
Statement: I liked the way my son was coached this year. Average Answer 4.25
Strongly Agree: 17
Agree: 10
Neutral or Don't Know: 3
Disagree:
Strongly Disagree: 2
27 out of 32 liked the way their son was coached. That's over 84%, and there were many kind comments about our efforts. Thanks for those. It appears that the two that didn't like "the way my son was coached" were not thrilled with the one team, two squads system. One of them even wrote "Thank you for your time & support. You're all great. But I didn't like the 2 teams." There were a couple of critiques as well about the offense - "The wishbone was a little too complex in the blocking schemes to have success in achieving long drives" and, more directly put, "I would like to see them run a different offense!!" But other than that, people seemed generally pleased.
In my view, our offense was decent for the black squad, and below average for the blue squad. I don't agree that the blocking schemes were too complex. Some boys totally understood them, and some boys struggled. I did study the 'long drive' comment, using the black squad, which was a middle of the pack team in their division. Looking back at the long drives for the season (and I will characterize a long drive as one of more than 50 yards) our black squad had seven drives of over 50 yards. Our opponents had only four. It is possible that the comment was alluding to long, multi-play drives that were absent of big plays. And most of our long drives did have a big play or two. But the long drives against us were similar.
Drives of 50+ against ONW Black
Olathe East - 70 yards, two 25 yard plays were big
Olathe East - 74 yards, a 57 yard TD was the big play
Gardner - 53 yards, a 53 yard TD play was the only yardage
Olathe South - 53 yards, a 53 yard TD play was the only yardage
Drives of 50+ for ONW Black
Blue Valley West - 80 yards, a 75 yard option pitch for TD
Olathe South Masters - 70 yards, big plays were 19, 26, & 21 spread between five other plays
Olathe South Masters - 54 yards, big play was 49 yard option pitch for TD
Gardner - 50 yards, big play was 43 yard option keep
Gardner - 71 yards, big play was 67 yard option keep for TD
SMNW - 51 yards, big play was option keep for 42
SMNW - 54 yards, 12 plays, longest was 18 yard pass
So while I agree that our offense did not have very many long, multi-play drives, I would argue that nobody does in youth football. Another way to measure the driving capability of the offense is to measure first downs plus touchdowns. Considering only the six similar opponents for the black squad (eliminating over-matched SMW and Olathe South Masters) our first downs plus touchdowns were virtually even. We had 31, while our six top opponents managed 34.
Statement: My son was placed on the appropriate squad based on his ability and experience. Average Answer 4.63
Strongly Agree: 23
Agree: 7
Neutral or Don't Know: 1
Disagree:
Strongly Disagree: 1
30 out of 32 thought that placement was correct, for 94%. One probably thought that son could have played on either team (likely) and the parent that strongly disagreed was one that did not care for the 1 team, 2 squads system.
Statement: I would have liked for my son to get more playing time. Average Answer 3.19
Strongly Agree: 2
Agree: 5
Neutral or Don't Know: 11
Disagree: 9
Strongly Disagree: 4
This was a tricky question to answer too. If you want more playing time for your son, then you would agree with the statement - but only 2 of 32 strongly agreed. The five others that agreed weren't adamant about it, and I would suspect recognize the difficulty of the numbers. For the same reason many of us put neutral or don't know - that is, sure, it would be nice if my kid got to play more, but he didn't have to. The score for this answer was the closest to neutral of all the questions.
Statement: I wish my son could have played a different position. Average Answer 2.78
Strongly Agree: 2
Agree: 5
Neutral or Don't Know: 13
Disagree: 8
Strongly Disagree: 4
This statement was also fairly close to neutral. If a parent answered neutral or disagree, then I took it to mean that they were at least comfortable with the position their son played. So that worked out to 78%. The other 22% would have liked to have seen their sons play a different position, which may also mean playing on another side of the ball - I don't disagree with that at all, but once again, roster numbers tended to reduce our ability to do that and still have fun.
Statement: I would like for my son to play football again next year. Average Answer 4.84
Strongly Agree: 29
Agree: 2
Neutral or Don't Know: 1
Disagree:
Strongly Disagree:
This statement garnered the most positive reactions on the survey. 97% of you parents would like for your son to play football again next year. I deliberately left the statement vague, i.e. what position, what coach, what team, etc. I wanted to make sure that we hadn't ruined the game for anybody, as that would be really disheartening. So far, so good.
Statement: Football is expensive. Average Answer 3.52
Strongly Agree: 7
Agree: 5
Neutral or Don't Know: 12
Disagree: 4
Strongly Disagree: 1
The one that strongly disagreed with this statement probably pays for premier soccer. I think football is a little bit expensive, but when I compare it to some other sports, it actually becomes somewhat reasonable. Nevertheless, I ask this in part to communicate to the FCCJC board that costs do matter, and to let our sponsors know that every little bit helps.
Thank you all so much for your responses and insight about our program!
