Coaching Youth Football has 272 pages covering offense, defense, and special teams. The book features the single-wing offense and 10-1 defense, but discusses other offenses and defenses at length.

As with all my books, Coaching Youth Football is real world and politically incorrect. The other youth football, or Pop Warner football, coaching books are quite politically correct and psychologically correct and tell you things like always be positive, focus on the fundamentals, make sure the players eat right, and speak of football generically without recommending any particular offense or defense. My book would have all that stuff, too, if it worked.

In fact you should relate to the players approximately as you do to your own children and as the parents of your players relate to their own son. Being positive all the time will not get the room cleaned up and the homework done. Kids need tough love. Fundamentals are nice. You have to teach fundamentals when it comes to the rules, safety, and the basics of various football actions like holding onto the football, keeping your head up, and so on. But most youth coaching books, and most youth coaches, spend far too much on fundamentals to the neglect of more important things like making sure the kids know their assignments. Making sure the kids eat right is a joke. Should their parents do that? Yes, but good luck. Mine didn’t. Do yours? In any event, it's not a youth football coach's role.

• $29.95, 272 pages
• Table of contents
• Reader comments
• Improvements made to the 4th edition, i.e.,
  differences between the 3rd and 4th editions