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The Board of Directors and Football Committee adopted a set of "Seahawks Values". When we consider a change in any of our programs, we ask "what would best serve our Seahawks values", then we consider each value, starting with Safety.
Players, parents, volunteers, coaches, in fact the entire Seahawks family, should be aware of what these values are. Comments or suggestions should be directed to a Board member, either in person or through the Seahawks email system.
Values:
1. Safety.
2. Respect and Personal Responsibility.
3. Participation and playing time.
4. Football instruction.
5. Competitiveness.
6. Organizational stability.
7. Political correctness / plausibility / transparency.
Safety
Football is a contact sport that involves physical collision. Parents and/or Guardians must assume responsibility for placing players in the Seahawks program. The Seahawks representatives do their best to prevent the following: physical injury (by placing players in appropriate competitive situations and by providing equipment and by encouraging physical fitness and by providing training); environmental injury (such as sunburn, mosquito bites, etc.) (by practicing on established fields, by encouraging use of mosquito or tick repellants, etc.); and psychological injury (by encouraging team unity and acceptance of winning and losing).
Respect and Personal Responsibility
In the long run (that is, through high school), the players who continue playing football, who eventually play at the high school varsity level, and who do well in life are those who practice the easily comprehensible values of "respect and personal responsibility". The Seahawks has adopted these as the basic values it expects THE PLAYERS to learn and exhibit in their conduct. Respect means they will respect their parents, their coaches, they teammates, their opponents, and themselves. Personal Responsibility means they will accept personal responsibility for their conduct and will live with the result (e.g., win or lose). We summarize these values for young players as "pay attention and do your best"; that is all anyone can expect, and we DO expect it from Seahawks athletes!
Participation and playing time
Within our organizational capability, the Seahawks enrolls as many players as it can (participation). Starting in 2007, we increased our participation from 140 to about 220 players), and we will continue to take all players who register. We have increased our number of teams (and therefore scheduled games) in order to increase playing time: even with the increase in participation, our average playing time per game has increased from about 30% to about 45%. Unfortunately, the more we increase participation, the more we decrease playing time, UNLESS we also add teams and/or games. IN 2008 and 2009, we have also scheduled some non-league games at the JV level to provide MORE playing time. We do the best we can!
Football instruction
We rely heavily on our coaches to implement our football program. Generally coaches have developed their own approaches to football instruction. However, in 2007, we have now decided that the Seahawks will adopt a unified set of coaching practices and procedures. These set of procedures were developed and implemented by the Football Committee. In general we will emphasize football fundamentals (blocking, tackling, conditioning and teamwork), focus on good defense, and let natural talent take care of offense!
Competitiveness
Competitiveness means that we want all of our teams to have a chance to win and succeed in any particular game. It is not the same thing as winning, and does not mean that we value competitiveness above other values. We simply believe that winning is a good thing: it motivates, it rewards, and it HELPS build a sense of worth and pride.
Organizational stability
Whatever values we hold or activities we promote, our organization needs to endure from season to season and to survive the normal stresses related to running a youth organization. Therefore, we cannot take on responsibilities so aggressive as to stress our (volunteers) organziation beyond its limits. We need to try to "keep it simple, stupid" at all times.
Political correctness/plausibility/transparency
Finally, we must be in step with our community, we must make sense to that community, and we must be seen by that community for what we are! To further these values, we will attempt to be direct, clear, and forthright in our dealings, both internal and external.
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