Peet football coach offers tips for becoming ‘A team athlete’

In Peet Junior High, the 7th grade football coaches select the best players to play for their “A” team, and the players that don’t qualify as an A team player are placed on teams B and below. 

But how does one actually get placed on the A team? What skills do they need? Seventh grade football coach Brett Williams said, “We first look for how much experience a kid has and how well they know the game.” 

But it’s not always just the skills the coaches look for in a player. The attitude of the student athletes plays a big role in what team they get placed on. 

This year, Williams’ goal was to try to get the players to make an effort to get along with the other players, really making the kids ask themselves, “What kind of a player are you?” Williams has been urging the players to celebrate with a teammate when any good play is made on the field in order to accomplish his goal. 

“Sometimes we get kids that have really good skills and performance, but their attitude toward the other players can make us coaches push them down to a lower team,” Williams said. “It’s always important for the players to get along and cheer each other on, or the whole team gets brought down.” 

But in order to excel in a sport, players have to do more than just show up to practice. “There’s a lot of things the kids can do outside of practice to grow in their sport,” Williams said. “Like weight training or watching the high school kids’ games. Just simple things like that can make all the difference.”

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