quote:
Coached middle school for a couple of years a few years ago. We had to deprogram most of the kids. The habits and techniques they learned in youth full contact football was horrible.

This is where it varies so much program to program. For instance tonight I am headed to the 2nd of a 5 part series put on annually by our HS Coaches to teach the Pop Warner coaches how they run their offense, defense, and practices in general. All of our terminology is the same as what the boys will have when they go to Middle School and then on to High School. Every Pop Warner team in our league is assigned at least 1 Senior from the HS team that comes out to our practices to mentor the kids as well and talk to them about technique and how things will run when they are in HS.

They also have made a series of videos similar to this one: LINK that show HS practices and technique and how we should conduct drills. We have the kids watch the videos as well so they can get a better understanding.

Everything is done with the goal of preparing the boys for Middle School, being safe, and having fun. It's a farm system for the High School, plain and simple. Certainly our HS coaches believe in it and put their kids in it as well. However, not all Pop Warner programs are the same.