Recruiting Players

[Shabby J]

I am finding out that an avid interest in football my not be enough to turn new players on to this hobby. I have a group of football fanatics at work, they all knew of the game as kids and were amazed to see the level of equipment today. They had fun playing at work but none of them have expressed a continued interest or desire to learn and play more.

Maybe you have to have an emotional attachment to the game, you know, the fond memories from childhood birthdays or Christmas and receiving and playing EF with your family or friends on the block.

I am suprised that as much as these guys live for football that they really had no more of a passing interest in MF.

If you love football how could you not like this hobby?!

I don't get it.

Any of you guys have experiences like this in trying to bring new players into the hobby?

[Franny-j-boy]

I say the same thing to people. This is like being the coach and player at the same time. I can control the outcome of my game. I love this game.

They need to touch and feel the players again and play a game with the new rules to get hooked.

[Reginald Rutledge]

Shabby J,

In my experience with potential coaches, I think you are right about some potential recruits. They say they love football and when you show them, they only have a passing interest. It makes it difficult to understand how if a person says he loves the game, why he would not be interested in the game of miniature football?

I know here in the DFW area, as I have pointed out several times, the RULES are everything. If you show a person a slow, methodical play which does not hold his interest for very long, it will be difficult to "hook" him. However, if you show him a style of play where things are happening all the time, the speed of the game is tremendous, and he can get right in and have some success, you may get him.

I also think, with me having stadiums, it is SO EASY to recruit! Guys come here and see the actual replica of Texas Stadium or Pro Player Stadium and think to themselves, "Wow, you guys actually play in those?" It freaks them out. I tell them, "It's not their father's miniature football!"

The stadium is used as the bait. The rules are used as the hook. The playing as used as the catch. When you give them excitement, fun, and help them understand that all the psychological things they thought about the game is erroneous, then you get your guy!

That's just been my experience. The way to maintain their interest is that the rules have to be exciting to the point that it makes them yearn to play again and again. If the rules are not, inevitably, they will lose interest.

Just my experience,

Reg

[RPD]

Originally Posted by Reginald Rutledge

Shabby J,

In my experience with potential coaches, I think you are right about some potential recruits. They say they love football and when you show them, they only have a passing interest. It makes it difficult to understand how if a person says he loves the game, why he would not be interested in the game of miniature football?

I know here in the DFW area, as I have pointed out several times, the RULES are everything. If you show a person a slow, methodical play which does not hold his interest for very long, it will be difficult to "hook" him. However, if you show him a style of play where things are happening all the time, the speed of the game is tremendous, and he can get right in and have some success, you may get him.

I also think, with me having stadiums, it is SO EASY to recruit! Guys come here and see the actual replica of Texas Stadium or Pro Player Stadium and think to themselves, "Wow, you guys actually play in those?" It freaks them out. I tell them, "It's not their father's miniature football!"

The stadium is used as the bait. The rules are used as the hook. The playing as used as the catch. When you give them excitement, fun, and help them understand that all the psychological things they thought about the game is erroneous, then you get your guy!

That's just been my experience. The way to maintain their interest is that the rules have to be exciting to the point that it makes them yearn to play again and again. If the rules are not, inevitably, they will lose interest.

Just my experience,

Reg

Amen, Reg, as we say while fishing, you got them"hook.line, and sinker"

[warriorman]

I have experienced say thing and then some. I live in very rural area and the closest league to me is like an hour or so away. I have tried to recruit guys here but they laugh and say theres no way you can control the men. I work on the road alot which means I spend alot of time during the week on the road. When I get a chance at lunch I stop at a library and log on here. When I do recruit coaches/players I normally give them this website along with a few others as a tool. I'm also looking for new advice on recruiting as well.

[mozeek]

where are you located? Is that NJ?

[Shabby J]

Originally Posted by Reginald Rutledge

Shabby J,

In my experience with potential coaches, I think you are right about some potential recruits. They say they love football and when you show them, they only have a passing interest. It makes it difficult to understand how if a person says he loves the game, why he would not be interested in the game of miniature football?

I know here in the DFW area, as I have pointed out several times, the RULES are everything. If you show a person a slow, methodical play which does not hold his interest for very long, it will be difficult to "hook" him. However, if you show him a style of play where things are happening all the time, the speed of the game is tremendous, and he can get right in and have some success, you may get him.

I also think, with me having stadiums, it is SO EASY to recruit! Guys come here and see the actual replica of Texas Stadium or Pro Player Stadium and think to themselves, "Wow, you guys actually play in those?" It freaks them out. I tell them, "It's not their father's miniature football!"

The stadium is used as the bait. The rules are used as the hook. The playing as used as the catch. When you give them excitement, fun, and help them understand that all the psychological things they thought about the game is erroneous, then you get your guy!

That's just been my experience. The way to maintain their interest is that the rules have to be exciting to the point that it makes them yearn to play again and again. If the rules are not, inevitably, they will lose interest.

Just my experience,

Reg

Thanks Reg for the insight, I printed your rules and may start using them that way. They absolutely loved the Chargers 308 you did for me, they were amazed to see it and play on it side by side with my vintage 620 and my 620 is really sweet, but they loved the 308. We had a classic Chargers vs Raiders throwdown.

Shabby,
Smitty brought me into the community through MEFA which is now the BEFL. It's a fantastic league. A lot of top level coaches and a great rec location. They were active in tournaments and stayed on the cutting edge of every and anything new! Smitty use to host a cook out for all of his league members during the summer. My college sweet heart had just brought a house two doors away. While chillin on the deck ,I heard that sound! I went to investigate. To my wonderous eyes, electric football had reappeared! They had new stock posses, differnt colored bases and they actually ran plays. The people who brought me in:Smitty, Vance Warren, Tom Johnson and all of the old MEFA crew made me feel like I was a part of something special. It almost felt like a good substitute for my very own fraternity. Ef was great! Now, we wanted to start a league in Bmore and we got little support because everyone was happy in the 'vile. For two years we held open house and we had large turn outs, but nobody was commited. During those lonley two years we networked everywhere with everybody and finally the 2006 Miggle convention came to Baltimore! It pulled people out of the woodwork and we found several people to start up a league. We have grown from 8 to 14 coaches. We made sure that our new coaches had a solid foundation on developing their teams and a full understanding of the rules. We guided them as to what to buy and we gave them a lot of things they needed. Now some of these guys are kicking my butt. ANYWAY, I just keep playing! Please keep your rules simple, but they must have some similarity to tournament rules; so that , new guys aren't confused when they play other people. Don't pull the hard sell like a car salesman! If they're interested they'll stick around. Donot tolerate arguements or fights over calls. This will cause people to roll out faster than my QB's! People don't want to spend their free time fussing and fighting when they came to hang out and have fun! Beware of this behavior if small children are around, it makes you guys look undesirable! One shameless self promotion if you please. We talk about recruiting to form a league in DVD#2 and I think you already have it! I hope this helps. I'm not the best player/coach in this community, but I KNOW PEOPLE AND I'VE SEEN ALMOST ALL OF IT! GOOD LUCK AND KEEP TRYING! TRON HAS SOPKEN!!!!!

[Shabby J]

Thank you as well Tron, more good advice. This was my first time trying to recruit, I'll keep it up.

Everybody else out there, if you do not have the series of EF Coaches DVDs, buy them, they are a great tool, both for the experienced coach as well as the newbie.