HOL In-State Tour Anonymous feedback: COVID struggles and transferring

HuskerOnline hosted its annual In-State Tour in Omaha and Lincoln and had 22 coaches and 136 players from across Nebraska and Council Bluffs, Iowa fill out anonymous questionnaires.

The questions varied between coaches and players and ranged from the number of multi-sport athletes to which coach got the most out of his team and the best players.

Not all of the coaches and players submitted a questionnaire but HuskerOnline will be running several features based on their responses.

In this installment, we will be reviewing the coach's answers to the most challenging part of managing a football program over the last two years and the impact transferring has on high school athletics.

Of the 21 coaches that answered the question, 11 mentioned the difficulty of not knowing what's next and having to constantly develop backup plans for practices, games, etc.

Five coaches said complying with new protocols like wearing masks and distancing was an adjustment. The same number of coaches also mentioned struggling with communicating with players and coaches, including trying to uphold their culture.

Based on where the schools were located, there was more or fewer protocols and local regulations.

Six coaches said the availability of players was a concern and also their physical availability on the field due to limited conditioning time.

“Keeping everyone available to coach and play. Planning for depth and contingency plans in case you have a bunch of kids out.”

“Not near as many problems in small-town Nebraska. 2021 – no challenges, 2020 - we had to mask and space players as much as we could. Quarantined 15 players at one point.”

“The unknown… changes to protocols could happen very fast. Players and coaches have done a great job of adapting to this.”

“Finding enough time to work with players.”

“Managing schedules, meeting with kids and coaches, being able to prepare.”

“The unknowns of if you’d be playing, who you’d be playing, and which guys would be able to play.”

“Communication with staff and players.”

“Keeping everyone connected. Expectations were constantly changing. We learned to adjust and move forward together.”

“Having to always have a plan B in the forever changing COVID landscape.”

“Figuring out the mask situation. ‘20 was much worse, never knowing if you were going to play. ’21 was pretty much back to normal for us.”

“Not knowing if you were going to get shut down or not.”

“Getting kids to buy-in to what was required, what was needed and consistently messaging our mission when outside influences would ‘taint’ their resolve. Getting them comfortable being uncomfortable with masks, no shower at times, unregular routines, etc. Learning to break norms/routines to fight/work for a greater cause. It’s a lot of work but it’s human nature to want to be led by strong leaders. So, you must be a STRONG leader!”

“Masking at practice, limited time in the weight room, travel to and from games.”

“The ability to bring players together for workouts and ensuring that they are developing.”

“Maintaining and building culture when not being able to meet in large groups in person.”

“Not playing! Having to rebuild our culture and experience.”

“Uncertainty of what was coming next.”

“Not knowing what each week would look like with personnel, practice, cancelations, etc.”

“Keeping players engaged.”

“I would say that at any given time you could lose someone on your team that had to quarantine because of a positive test or possible exposure. You could lose a starter the day of a game with no warning. Always had to make sure you had backups prepared.”

Of the 20 coaches that chose to answer the question, 14 specifically said transferring has directly impacted high school programs. Of the more specific answers, one coach mentioned the impact that the ability to transfer in college has on colleges recruiting high school players.

Another coach saw an increase in transferring when Omaha Public Schools didn't have any sports during the 2020-2021 school year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some students transferred to schools outside of the district to play sports.

Eight coaches specifically said they've seen the impact of transferring become greater over the last several years. Here are the coaches' answers:

“Huge! It has slowed the traffic down on high school recruiting significantly. It trickles down to the D2 and NAIA schools as well. A lot of wait and see.”

“I would say it’s trickling down into high school. We are starting to see some students choosing to opt to another school for extra or better academic and/or extracurricular opportunities.”

“Some impact but has not been major changes over the past 10 years.”

“Kids are always looking for “something better”. It will only get worse.”

“The commitment to programs and coaches. Seems to be getting more difficult for kids to be recruited when college coaches now recruit other college athletes to their program.”

“I’ve seen it become a bigger part of things. It’s definitely something that impacts high school programs.”

“It is starting to trick down – especially in Lincoln and Omaha where there are multiple schools.”

“I think a lot of kids are searching for successful programs in high school. It starts with the coaching from the headmen down. When kids see that, they tend to want to be around it.”

“LPS had made it difficult for some students to transfer so it hasn’t impacted us very much.”

“We get contacted frequently about potential transfers. We do not provide transportation so that limits those that actually end up transferring.”

“It has impacted it. Kids see college kids transfer and they think they can transfer. Trickle down.”

“Some. More during the pandemic when OPS was shut down.”

“It is increasing every year. More and more kids/families want the ability to improve as a player and be successful.”

“It’s becoming much more common. Tougher to build and maintain culture.”

“It is more common today than ever before.”

“A great deal. Pros and cons, meeting the athletes' needs is the positive, lack of loyalty being the negative.”

“This has been an ever-growing thing at the high school level and I’m not a huge fan of it.”

“It is becoming a very challenging problem. It is hurting schools that are trying to build.”

“A lot and certain schools have really tried to make a living recruiting other school’s players.”

“Somewhat. However, we’ve had little/no transfers (after 9th grade) work out for us and conversely, have seen little/no success from kids who have left us. Vast majority of impact players are program guys.”