Banquets

You can do more than just give out awards with some purposeful planning.

As a young boy growing up in Wilmington, Delaware, I remember family dinners vividly. The five of us would gather at the kitchen table, dad would say a standard Catholic prayer and there was always a brown stone jug with ice tea. It wasn’t until I was older that I learned other families drank something else during dinner. The family that had soda with dinner elicited the same reaction from me that whipped cream on coffee gets from my father. Dinner was important to my family. I don’t think it was a purposeful “team building” activity, but it symbolized a collective end to the day and a reminder that we were a “team” even if my brother bullied me into accepting his vegetables when mom wasn’t looking.

It's banquet season again and as teams gather to celebrate their year, I though it might be valuable to share some thoughts about how the components of these gatherings can be used to create stronger football programs and classrooms.

• Food

Food is the most common denominator of your banquet. Everyone will have an opinion on it. It ranks a close second to the weather as to what people will complain about. I recently attended two banquets with very different food options. The first was a catered sit down meal of prime rib and the second was a buffet made by Ukrainian babas. People complained and evaluated both. When it comes to your food choice for banquets you will not win. There will always be someone who thinks you should have done it differently. Wth that in mind, I would suggest you keep your focus on what the kids want, rather what well- meaning parents suggest. A meal from the popular BBQ chain might be awesome, but will that price point be worth the difference in enjoyment by your players over pizza and chicken?

Read until the end to learn how jellof rice can cause a fight in an empty bar.

• Awards

I hate individual awards: Offensive MVP, Defensive MVP, Most Improved, Sportsmanship, Best Hair, and so on. I remember when my son was playing youth football his team had two separate rookie awards- one for kids who were brand new to football and one for kids who had played the previous year. It reminded me of the Simpsons episode where Homer received a made up award for “Outstanding achievement in the field of excellence.” I dislike individual awards for a myriad of reasons, but the biggest one is the affect I see it have on coaches. When it becomes award selection time, its is uncomfortable to watch the marginal coach who suddenly become excited at the prospect of evaluating players like a judge at the Westminster dog show. These are usually the same guys who shout out, “Lets see who wants to hit!” on the first day of contact.

We stoped doing individual awards five years ago. We now do one award for what we call the OKG of the Year (Our Kind of Guy- credit Bud Wilkinson). When we first enacted this practice it caused a mutiny in the youth club my wife and I were running. Interestingly enough, the revolt was from the coaches of one of the teams. Since then, by eliminating individual awards we have been able to strengthen a team culture which puts the needs of the team before the wants of the individual.

When the marginal coaches revolted, I knew I was onto something good.

• Dress

I think this is important. We ask our players to dress formally for our banquet. It takes a few years until you flush out the kids who will show up in jean and sweats, but it is worth the effort. As much as it makes me sound curmudgeonly, I grow increasingly concerned with the casualness of dress at formal occasions. I believe that we have a duty to teach kids that what you wear is a reflection of the importance of the occasion. I don’t think I am ever going to be ok with shorts and baseball caps at weddings or funerals. I also struggle with teachers who wear jeans and sandals. Although I am not suggesting that you imitate Jim Halpert from the Office who countered Dwight Schrute’s memo about acceptable office dress, by wearing a tuxedo the next day, I do think we reflect the importance of the event by what we choose to wear. Your banquet should be an important occasion and the kids need to learn to reflect that in their dress.

These moms would not let their sons wear jeans to a wedding.

• Guest Speakers

I recently had the opportunity to be a guest speaker at a football banquet. I spoke on the topic of Why Football is Important. The speech included photos, stories, and personal shoutouts to individuals in the audience. It went well. However, if given the choice, I usually say “no" to guest speakers. Unless I know the content well and the speaker has a personal connection with the group, it usually becomes a speech about themselves and the kids stop listening to after two minutes. Instead, I would suggest that you invest your time in a highlight film. All football teams create highlight films, but as your banquet audience is more than your players, this highlight film should not focus on great football plays that only half of your audience will appreciate. Rather, your highlight film should act as a video yearbook that reviews all aspect of your program. If done properly, this will remind the audience that they were part of something greater than themselves. Here is a link to our highlight video. The first third reviews our program activities, the second third is great plays, and the final third is a tribute to our Grade 12 players.

• Tone/Big Finish

Finally, your banquet needs to be an opportunity to “set the tone” for your upcoming season. We have always used the last ten minutes for the Head Coach to address the program. We also remind people that the 50/50 draw will happen after the final words to make sure they stick around. This is when I announce our new endeavours for the upcoming season: a midnight practice, weekend sleepover, and this year an alumni game. I like to use it as a review/preview opportunity that leaves the program excited about what is to come. I saw the power of this moment as a young assistant coach at Vestal High School in Vestal, New York. The Head Coach was finishing up the banquet by summarizing the year, and announcing the captains for the upcoming season. He then went on to remind the audience that every critical social media post moves the team backwards in its progress and causes the players to doubt their coaching. He stated that it was the equivalent to divorced parents undermining each other’s parenting. He then invited anyone who has a critical comment about him, to speak with him personally and not broadcast from behind a computer screen. I remember the awkward silence and then a single person started clapping, and then another, and then another until the entire audience (except for one guy) was enthusiastically applauding. He set the tone with a big finish.

Banquets are important, and a purposeful banquet can impact your program like a purposeful dinner will impact a family. It is too important of an opportunity to shape your vision to just go through the motions or hand it off to a parent group.

As a side note, I often do banquets for my program in school. We usually do it as a pot luck before the Winter Break and at the end of the school year. One year we had an educational assistant who was from Nigeria and she was a caterer on the side. She brought in a giant tub of jellof rice, which is a traditional dish of Nigeria, although it can be found throughout Africa. We so enjoyed it so much that the kids and I would often request she bring in more and explain the various versions. We learned that Nigerians take great pride in their jellof rice, similar to the way Southerners, in the United States, feel about their grits. To this day, whenever I get a substitute EA from Nigeria, I tell them, “I hear the jellof rice from Cameroon is the best in Africa.” Wow, the fur flies after that.