conference unity

[Dylan Dickey]

Having played my four years and now being a close resource as an alumnus to Mankato's program I find my self reflecting and considering where improvements could be made. There are a lot of influences to a program's success. From my perspective, some of them include: a program's history, support from alumni, level of leadership within the squad, longevity of a coaching staff, support from university, program's objectives, $, etc. etc. I think having identified resources that would share what does & what doesn't work would have helped me more efficiently take care of administrative tasks so that I could spend more time concentrating on improving my game and developing as a team.

In order to assure the survival and growth of the UMLL as a whole I encourage teams to open their doors and share success stories with each other. On field competition does not need to be affected by this. In fact, on field competition might heighten due to having gained more respect for a team by working closely with them on off field issues. Helping other programs become more successful and stable could lead to better/closer matched competition in conference. I am talking about sharing ideas for fund raising, on campus exposure/involvement, how to get local/corporate sponsorship, secret places for great deals on gear/apparel, how to recruit on campus, how to keep players once you've recruited them, etc.etc. I do not see anything negative that having more brains to pool from (even brains that are or have dealt with the same problems you are/will) could yield.

There is more to this, but I thought I would throw the idea out there to see how other UMLLers feel about different ways to push our league as a whole.

Dylan

[DanGenck]

A word of advice-

In the football world, the general idea is that you share information only with people you do not play, and if you do not play each other, you hold nothing back that could potentially be helpful.

At St. John's, we always had nice tips and helpful ideas from other conference teams... however, the best information we received was from teams from other divisions and conferences that had nothing to lose from sharing information with us.

Call around to other conferences and to Division III teams as they will be more willing to talk and offer suggestions.

[Gopherlax29]

In a league where one must pay to play, it is hard for everyone to 'scout propely'. However, I do not want to share my tactics but I do not mind the dropping of players to watch and letting other teams know how others run. I am more a fan of beating the best not watching someone else do it. I do like competive game though...Its a tough question, but without the league resources to have scouts at different locations it must be done on the practice field with what you can control as a team. Be prepared as to waht you want to do as a team and scout from there. I would love to haev game film of every team as a coach but you can't, yet. Again, good luck to all this year...