Every successful youth football organization has to be creative these days to attract players. Putting together a “Bring a buddy to practice day” might be one of the most effective and inexpensive methods to do this.

This is an event that gets both parents and players to your practice field in a no obligation, dip-your-toe-in-the-water outing that can yield big results.

Many parents and players have no clue what happens at a youth football practice. Many think it is constant hitting and conditioning and not much fun. Parents have visions of a mini-NFL team with lots of contact and a Marine drill sergeant-type coach running players until they throw up.

That isn’t how successful youth teams practice and the kids and parents need to see that. 

This day should be held the last couple of weeks of your season, after your teams have gotten their routines down and look like real football teams. Set a date and make the event for the first hour of practice. Send the invite out as an email to all of your present and past parents and ask them to forward the email to anyone that has kids in the age group you play in.

The email is an invitation to attend a portion of practice that the boys can participate in if they choose to with a question and answer period for both players and parents after. Design a flyer for the event and hand out some to each of your players to distribute to their friends and relatives. Publicize the event on your Facebook page.

Most public schools will send home flyers like this in a weekly packet their students bring home. Print our a flyer for every student in the schools you have players in and ask them to distribute them to their students.

On the event day, make a big deal out of it. We attach all of our championship banners or team picture banners to the fence that surrounds our practice field. We display all of our team championship trophies.

The parents make a poster featuring their child along with funny sayings, pictures or drawings, and these go along the fence too. Play music, get to practice early and have your best team parents meeting and greeting the parents, handing out your information and sign-up flyer and funneling the kids over to you. You can have the kids catching passes in a simple and easy to execute drill.

Let all the new kids be part of your dynamic warm-up if they want to and then let them sit to the side while you quickly separate into position groups. Here you want to demonstrate to the parents and kids that you know what you are doing, that they can learn from you and that football can be fun.

Do some of your more elaborate drills and keep full contact to the ground hitting to a minimum, just like you would in a normal practice. Put the skill position groups closest to where the parents and kids will be standing. Bring out all the stops and show off. If you use Tackle Tube or some elaborate gear, use it.

Then go to team drills. Be organized, quick, efficient and waste no time, just like you should be doing if you are a successful program. During the team session, run some of your plays in fit-and-freeze mode with bags and make sure you consistently rotate everyone in.

Parents will judge you by how effective and efficient you seem on a surface level. Kids will judge you on how confident you appear, how sharp your team executes and how much fun their peers are having.

Wrap the practice up with some games the new kids can participate in. Have your boys take off their shoulder pads and helmets and get a spirited game of sharks and minnows or deer hunter going. If you aren’t doing conditioning hidden in an all-out game format, you’re missing the boat. It’s something we do at every practice. The kids love it. It’s an amazing way to condition kids and everyone has a blast. While your kids finish up the second hour of practice, you can have the opportunity to talk to the parents and recruits.

Have some drinks and snacks available for the kids and parents. Sit everyone down, ask them if they had fun and give them a quick, five-minute commercial on why they should play football for your program.

This can’t be given by the coach who loves to hear himself or herself speak and wants to tell stories and carry on for 20 minutes. This is a very quick overview and sales pitch to the parents and kids. Have a sheet to hand out that includes your practice times, season length, game days, your program's unique qualities and its track record, and include a sign-up form on the back. Then open it up to questions.

Make sure your most influential and positive parents are flanking you and chiming in during the Q&A session.

SEE ALSO: USA Football's Heads Up Football

Tie this event into an open house at your next home game. Offer an early-bird discount if the player signs up at or before that next home game. Include a coupon for a free drink and snack. We also offer a free t-shirt or used game jersey if the player signs up at the open house on gameday.

If you have a large program, you can try a unique incentive. For example, if you get 50 kids to the “Bring a buddy to practice day” all the head coaches get pies in the face after that practice. The kids go nuts on stuff like this and of course, the parents will inevitably record it and put it on social media, getting your program even more positive exposure in the community.

The days of putting an ad in the local paper and seeing your team all sign up at your warehouse on a Saturday in July are long gone. Recruit year round and use your practices and games as your recruiting grounds to help parents and players understand the positive experience youth football can offer.

Dave Cisar is the founder and president of http://winningyouthfootball.com. He has spoken at over 230 coaches clinics worldwide, was named the No. 4 Most Influential on Hudl’s top 100 and has authored several award-winning youth football books.