The best sports coaches are naturally wanting more all the time. Seeking perfection in an imperfect environment. However, do you find yourself always feeling like there is never enough practice time? It could be because you need to be more organized.
Why Do Sports Coaches Need To Be Organized? Organized coaches have better athlete engagement at practice and games, reduce the level of ambiguity within the teams inner circle and anxiety levels are low due to being prepared for any situation thrown at the team. If this isn’t your strength as coach, find yourself a support staff to assist.
This article will provide you with the steps to ensure you are maximizing your team performance when the lights are brightest. The buck typically starts and finishes with the coach and as leader, your ability to organize yourself and the rest of your group will play a significant part in your team’s growth throughout the course of your season.
Coach Organization Equals Athlete Engagement
When playing sport, I would get so annoyed when we’d be at practice and we’d just finished a drill and the coach spent the next 4-5 minutes talking about what we should do next.
Now some of you might think this is a good thing, as coach and players are conversing and agreeing on what they believe needed to be worked on at that time.
However, that same coach was also the person who would be annoyed after practice and I would hear him say to his assistants, “damn, I wanted to work on that today and we didn’t get to it.”
Dialogue between coach and players on areas for improvement is encouraged, however, there is a time and place. And that time is not when you are in the middle of a limited, 60-minute practice time slot.
This same coach would also come to practice with the same drills each and every week. Some may say this repetition is a good thing and I agree to an extent. Repetition of a skill is important, though repetition with the same drill is not.
Players need to be challenged to improve and if you conduct the same drills each and every week, without variation or extending goals, you are reliant on the player bringing the knowledge and self-motivation each practice to improve. You are the coach for a reason. These athletes don’t always have the answer right away and need you to guide them in the right direction.
Coaches, planning and organization keeps your athletes engaged.
Why is engagement so important you might ask? Albeit a business reference, I believe it’s extremely relevant here in the context of your team environment and culture; “Highly engaged employees make the customer experience. Disengaged employees break it.” (source)
If you don’t know where to start, create a practice plan. Share it with your assistants. Do this every practice session! It will allow you to run an efficient practice, working on your goals and targets for the course of the season.
Players don’t have time to misbehave when engaged, as outside of a drink break, you are moving on to the next drill. Engaged players will improve the most, continue to play the sport and create a team environment that’s enjoyable for everyone to be around.
Related post: Coaches Guide to Managing Disrespectful Youth Athletes
Coach Organization Alleviates Ambiguity
Coach, why am I not getting more playing time? Well player X, it’s because I need to see more of “this” from you. But coach, I have been doing that and you haven’t seen it.
No coach ever wants to be in a position with a back and forth conversation with their player. It typically doesn’t end well for the player, though it does raise a question – why are you in this conversation in the first place?
As a coach, I pride myself on all players in my team understanding where they are at within their roles and what’s required for them to change that, should they not be happy with it. That level of organization alleviates any ambiguity from the athlete and allows them to focus on what’s required for the betterment of the team.
But what can you do in a practical sense to alleviate misunderstanding in interpretation? Here are some examples;
- Set clear expectations of standards to how players conduct themselves on and off the playing arena
- Track performance data on the athletes that supports your style of play. Share that information with your athletes where appropriate.
- Let the athlete know where they need to improve and have evidence to support it. That’s where your data comes in.
- When using data, don’t validate decision making by positive “scoring” statistics. It must be a statistic that everyone can evenly accumulate.
- Have video to support what you see. Players are always surprised that what shows up on film, is a little different to what they thought they were doing.
“Most of the world will make decisions by either guessing or using their gut. They will be either lucky or wrong.”
Source
Some of the most talented teams in the world didn’t achieve the ultimate prize, as coaches and players didn’t embrace their roles on given teams. I’m sure you also can talk to stories of players sacrificing their given “stats” or standing in the sport as it was required for the betterment of the group.
This can only happen when organization has occurred between the head coach, assistants, managers and players, with any ambiguity removed because everyone knew what it took and was directing all energy toward team goals, versus individual views.
Related: What are the Challenges of Coaching Youth Sports?
Coach Organization Reduces Anxiety
Sport can be a highly intense environment at the best of times. Blood is pumping, sweat pouring off everyone, emotions and senses are heightened. Everyone wanting to do their best to get the desired outcome for their team.
So with that, comes a level of anxiety as sport is competitive and you can never be sure how a game/matches/tournament/event will play out. Albeit you as coach and your athletes have already played it over in your heads a million times before you get to the day itself.
So as coach, it’s important you are organized with exactly what you want and need, to ensure both yours and the teams level of anxiety is reduced.
We know sport is tactical and what’s the best way to handle a stressful situation of an opponent doing something unusual or unexpected? Being prepared for it because you have seen it before and know how to combat the situation.
Preparedness comes not from calling a for a break in play and telling the athletes what you want, rather it happens at practice because you’re organized and have already shown your team what’s required in any circumstance.
We see too often a game played out where both teams are back and forth in the first half and when it gets to halftime, scores are close. However, after halftime, one team kicks away and “shell shocks” the other team to the point where they are no longer competitive.
Now a number of factors can go into this change, however, the best coaches understand how to “make adjustments” based on how the game was previously being played.
When seen, is your team’s mental state equipped to handle the shift in gameplay because you’re prepared for any situation that could be thrown at you? Or does your anxiety increase and as such, decision making goes out the window because you’ve stopped focusing on what’s important to combat the tactics currently being presented?
There are too many factors that can impact ones mental state regarding sport performance to detail in this short blog, but what we know is that being organized as coach and by virtue, preparing your team, will provide better results over your teams journey together.
Getting organised is a powerfully resilient way to build your self-confidence. What’s even better is it will also build confidence and a sense of security in those around you.
Source
Coach Organization Requires Good People
We’ve focused primarily on what it takes to ensure your team performs at its optimum due to being organized, though there is plenty more that goes into running a successful team. Booking training venues, organizing home and away uniforms, who’s communicating this weeks playing roster, which groups are helping out with concession stands this week?
The best coaches are those who have time to focus on maximizing athlete performance and they can do this because they’ve got a great support network around them to manage the day to day operations of the team. So it’s important you go out and find good people, who have the same views as you to assist with the team.
I would start with an assistant coach or two. They’ll be a great sounding board for you when it comes to tactics and x’s and o’s, though you should share the administration responsibilities with them as a way of getting acclimatized into being the head coaching position someday. Great assistants will embrace anything required for the improvement of the team.
We’d also suggest finding yourself a team manager, who can be a liaison between yourself, athletes, parents, administration or anyone who plays a part in your teams day to day dealings.
It’s important that you and the manager are closely aligned and you set clear boundaries on his/her responsibilities. They are an extension of you and coming back to being organized, you want to make sure they also have clarity on how to approach certain situations and continue to promote the same views of the coaching staff and wider team.
I’ve always felt comfortable in providing my team managers with the autonomy to handle any situation how they see fit, as we set clear expectations and ground rules prior to the season. They also know, in case of emergency, to get on the phone and give me a call first before responding to anything!
Related post: What are the Responsibilities of a Youth Sports Coach?
Summary: Why Do Sports Coaches Need To Be Organized?
Most of you are giving up spare time to coach sports and we know it takes up a lot of it. However, spend a little extra time preparing and organizing yourself and team. You’ll find the overall coaching experience much less taxing.
If it’s not your strong suit, spend time recruiting a good network of assistants and administrators to help you out in the interim. But remember, this is only a bandaid. You need to improve in this area!
Coaches out there, why is organization important for your team?
What could others do that would help with this process, no matter what level of the sport you coach at?
Cheers,
Daniel
