Welcoming Ninth-Graders to High School and Building Culture

Culture is often a buzzword used in the athletic world, but it is hard to overemphasize how important it is to be intentional when growing it. These are words used each and every day and year when building the Brainerd (Minnesota) High School Warrior football program.

Brainerd High School has roughly 1,800 students – a much different setting than my previous position at Houston High School, which has roughly 140 students in grades 9–12 and is located in southeastern Minnesota. One of the first realizations was the disconnect in a much larger school when it comes to kids knowing kids and coaches connecting with kids.

In a small town, everyone knows everyone, and when you have an athletic program, it is very easy to acclimate and welcome your incoming ninth-graders. In a larger school, like Brainerd, the ninth-graders know some of the older kids but oftentimes do not. At the same time, another challenge is that our ninth-grade team is separate from us, creating a barrier to getting them to feel more like they are part of Warrior Football.

When arriving at Brainerd five years ago, we began to determine how to make the freshmen feel like a part of the whole program in every sense, from our core values to how we do things year-round. Coaching is oftentimes about taking other people’s ideas and then making them your own. I began picking the brains of mentors, reading articles, doing Zoom calls, to learn about ways to accomplish this. We took a concept that is used by some coaches, and we named it our Ninth-Grade Official Visit Night, essentially taking the concept of when students go on official college visits.

Now, we have created a night in the spring where we invite our incoming ninth-graders to come to the high school with their parents or guardians. The night includes tours of the high school given by our varsity players, an informational meeting that outlines what high school football is like led by the head coach. We also have a former player speak about their experience, a former senior parent talks to the parents about their experience, and much more.

Each player gets to try on the varsity jersey and take their picture, which we then turn into a cool graphic that is posted to social media, along with a picture of the player signing a letter of intent to be a Warrior Football player for the next four years. Our ultimate goal is to create an excitement that makes them feel as if they are joining our whole high school program and not just the ninth-grade football team.

A lot of planning goes into this night. Our coaching staff is there to greet parents and players, and we feed them, but all of that is well worth it in the end. Building culture is about making daily deposits into our culture bank, and that is centered around building those relationships from Day One with our new players.

We have found a tradition that has worked. Not only has it started to make our ninth-graders feel like they are Warriors, but it has also helped with the transition for those incoming parents as well. We have seen our freshman numbers increase and our overall numbers increase as well in the past five years. This year, we will have nearly 160 players in grades 9–12, in comparison to 2020, when we had about 110. Being intentional and finding creative ways to build culture and welcome people into our program is something we will continue to do to build the Warrior Football program and the Warrior Football experience.