Summer has just begun to kick in and you are flipping burgers at your family picnic. Suddenly, it dawns on you that you volunteered to coach your son’s youth football team or your daughter’s flag football team this fall. Your wonder where the time went--you agreed to do this back in March when there seemed like so much time to research, plan and get organized.

To make matters worse, you really don't have an extensive background in coaching, especially coaching football. As you mull over the option of backing out, you look over and see your son or daughter throwing a football with their friends and realize you have some work to do.

Trust me when I say that this scenario will play out many times across the country this month as parents and young coaches tackle the responsibilities that go along with coaching youth tackle football or flag football for the first time. Today, we are going to give you some key pointers that will help before you even get involved with a football or scheme.

It ain’t about you.

This is lesson No. 1 for coaches at all levels, but it’s critical to remember that it's always about the kids when coaching a youth team. Everything that you do when planning your practices or games should be prefaced with this question: Is this helping the players?

You will soon come to find that if the kids and their parents know you care about them and that they are learning the basics of football, you’ve already won half the battle. Keep in mind, that you will have to relay this message to your assistant coaches as well, just to make sure that everyone is on the same page.

You are going to have a wide variety of talent on the field as well as a mix of parents and expectations to manage for the entire season. Every practice and every game will take on a life of its own. But, if you keep the kids first, it will always guide you and your staff as you make decisions throughout the season.

You and your team will probably not know or remember the outcome of your second or third game this season. But, there is a high likelihood that if you run into that kid in the grocery store 20 years from now, they will remember the experience they had playing and learning from you. This is your job as a youth football coach. Teach and coach life lessons that will serve your players for the rest of their lives.

Be organized.

There is nothing more frustrating to a young child or to the parent of a young child than to arrive at practice and spend the first 20 minutes watching the coaches get organized. The work that you put in before you ever get to the field will dictate how successful that practice will be and how much improvement and enjoyment your players will get from it.

Always have a lesson plan or a practice plan ready before practice. If you look at any coach from the NFL down through high school, one thing they have in common is that they always have a practice plan. Every minute of that practice should be planned before you ever take the field.

A normal practice plan will be broken down into 10- or 15-minute segments and include such categories as individual period, group period and team period. This can obviously be broken down into more detail, but the point is that every coach should have this practice plan before practice starts so that everybody is on the same page.

You should have the field organized before practice starts. If you want to have a bad practice, spend the first 10 minutes setting up your cones, your bags and your drills while your team gets restless and your parents get frustrated. Require that your assistant coaches and you arrive to practice early to have this done before your team gets there. This will allow you and your coaches to be organized and give you time to interact with your parents as they show up with your players. This way, when the clock strikes the minute practice is supposed to start, practice actually starts.

Keep them moving and engaged

Young minds are going to wander. Lines are not your friend when you are coaching young people. If your drills have a young player standing in line for more than 30 seconds, you are going to lose them. Break your practices up into stations. Use your help. Get your assistant coaches involved and give them responsibilities. The time that you spend before practice can and should be used to coach your coaches so that they understand what is to be taught. This way, when practice starts, coaches and players are both working and not standing around.

Do not allow your team to walk around at practice. When you, your coaches, and your team move from drill to drill or period to period it should be done with a whistle or a horn and you should be running to everything. You will be amazed at how this one little thing will improve your practice tempo, help it flow smoother and instill discipline to your team.

Use progression teaching

Football can be a complicated game if you do not break it down into small parts. It is easy for a coach to stand up in front of their team and say football is about blocking and tackling. The truth of the matter is that blocking and tackling need to be broken down into smaller parts as it is taught.

When teaching young kids how to block and tackle you are going to have a lot more success if you confine the space early. Allow the kids to get in a blocking or a tackling posture on a dummy or another player so that they can learn what that body position feels like. After that, incrementally back them up and let them walk, jog and eventually run to get to that position.

Some of the best coaches in the world at the highest level of football still teach blocking by putting their players in the position where they are fitted up on the defender first. That same coach will go back and teach the stance and the steps that get the player to that position later. It is not until the coach requires the players to put it all together that the players finally are asked to execute the full technique.

Involve your parents

Parents are going to be involved. How and to what degree they are involved can mostly be up to you. Encourage your parents to be involved with practice. Obviously, you will have to make sure they are certified and qualified but even if they are not, there are organizational things that they can help with. Remember, it is hard to be critical of something that you're involved with. At the same time, if you are invited to be involved with something and decline, it is hard to be critical.

Even if the parents are not actually involved in the practice itself, make sure they are in on the practice plan. Always bring your team together with a whistle or a horn at the beginning of practice to tell them what you are going to accomplish that day. Make it brief, but outline our goals and practice plan.

When you do this, invite the parents to come listen. This will show the parents that you are confident, in charge and organized. This is also a great time to tie in some type of character lesson or life lesson for that practice. Parents need to hear that you are teaching their kids lessons about character, work, team, sacrifice and choices.

What about the football?

Most of you are probably thinking, "Coach, you haven't talked very much about actual football yet." And you would be right. There is still time for that and I highly recommend that you lean on proven professional organizations when it comes to learning technique and schemes. 

RELATED: USA Football's Practice Smart course

Take a look at your players and get a rough idea of their size and talent. Then, decide on a small, simple package to start with on offense, defense and special teams. Obviously, this will be different for every team. Remember, regardless of your scheme and game plan, the things we talked about above are going to give you a fighting chance to get it taught.

Charlie Coiner is a thirty-year veteran of major college and NFL coaching. He launched FirstDown PlayBook in 2015 and the goal remains the same as when he was coaching. FirstDown PlayBook’s mission is to provide a digital football playbook that helps coaches at all levels coach better. To learn more about FirstDown PlayBook visit either http://blog.firstdownplaybook.com or https://firstdownplaybook.com.