Category: Coaching

Watch and Learn – Kids Will Teach You How to Coach

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Think back to your daughter’s  first coloring project. Most likely she was about three years old. Before she began, it was necessary to give her a few simple procedural tips:
• The crayons are for coloring, they are not to be broken or eaten.
• Draw on the paper, not the desk, or the wall.
• Draw pretty, have fun!
The rest is history. She began drawing and most parents couldn’t wait to post her scribbled masterpiece on the refrigerator.

As time passed, your daughter took on the challenge of coloring her favorite princess in the coloring book. She would select a purple, green, or teal crayon to color the princess’ hair and a red or green crayon for her jacket or dress. The fact that there has never been a princess with hair or a dress that color was irrelevant to her. She chose those colors because she liked them or thought they were pretty.

Most likely the coloring extended beyond the outline of the princess and might be described as coloring in zones. Despite the flaws, it was an improvement over the scribbled masterpiece that it replaced on the front of the fridge.

With more practice, most of the coloring for the princess’ hair and dress were within the outline and the colors she selected more closely resembled those seen in the real world. By the time she was ten, she had “mastered” the use of crayons for coloring a princess.

At no point in the process did your daughter have a coloring trainer, coloring psychologist, or coloring dietician to help her improve her skills. Over the past seven years she developed her skills by practicing and receiving simple guidance and encouragement from her peers, parents, and teachers. The process was gradual, it was fun, and it gave her a sense of accomplishment. As a result, drawing and art will be a passion that she will share with others.

The learning process demonstrated by your daughter to color princesses is the same process she and other young kids use when they learn to play a sport. This process is outlined below as it applies to a junior learning to play tennis.
• Equipment – She can build a strong foundation if she has equipment designed for juniors – shorter racquets, low compression balls, and a smaller court.
• Safety and etiquette tips – Racquets are to be used for hitting the ball, not her sister, the ground, or the net post. Temper tantrums are not appropriate.
• Guidelines – It is overwhelming to play tennis for the first time, for the first year, and for the first seven years. Technical guidelines should be broken down into manageable bites.
• Realistic expectations – It took her seven years to draw a beautiful princess. It will take her longer to be a great tennis player. She is more likely to watch Wimbledon than to play there.
• Encouragement – Parents should provide “specific” encouragement even when the outcome isn’t pretty. For example, Instead of saying, “Good Job” say “You moved well to your forehand.”
• Performance – Praise her effort. Her number one priority is to manage her performance. The outcome (the scoreboard) is not her top priority. When the dust settles after a match, ask her if she had fun and tried her hardest.
• Learning – Provide an environment where she can learn from her mistakes. She will likely learn more from her errors than she will learn from you trying to keep her from making mistakes. For example, players may not always call out the score until they have experienced the tough lesson of losing a match because they lost track of who was winning.
• Comfort zone – As she improves, present greater challenges. Help her learn to function out of her comfort zone. For example, once she has become proficient at hitting forehands in the court, have her hit forehands cross court. Initially, that is a threatening task.
• Keep it fun! – Play during a cool part of the day and include her friends. Continue to present challenges as a way of giving her a chance to improve and feel good about getting better. That is fun!
• Celebrate – As she masters new challenges, celebrate! Just as you put her art masterpieces on the fridge, make room to display ribbons and medals.
• Patience – It takes time. It took awhile for her to choose the right color of crayon for the princess’ hair, it will take awhile for her to hit a spin serve, crosscourt backhand and become a proficient tennis player.
The process of learning to play tennis is not much different than learning how to color your favorite princess.

Watch and learn! It’s amazing how much a coach can learn by watching his daughter color princesses.

Relentless Competitors

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Are you looking for a way to motivate your athletes to be more competitive?

Jeff Janssen has written a series of books about leadership, team building, coaching, and competitiveness. His book Develop Relentless Competitors Drillbook provides coaches with drills, concepts, activities, and stories to help them raise their athletes’ levels of competitiveness. Examples are provided in the following paragraphs. Relentless Competitors

Concepts

Carolina Basketball’s Awards Board

In a nutshell Coach Roy Williams tracks statistics in 37 categories such as charges taken, box outs, and deflections. The categories also include turnovers, the quality of the screens, and the passes that would have been assists if the shot had not been missed. Ratios are established to measure the relationship between positive and negative plays.

These statistics did not focus on winning; rather they focused on the process of winning. Data was published shortly after each game which allowed played to have immediate feedback. As well, this allowed the coaches to recognize the players on a regular basis for their accomplishments in each of these key categories.

One of the important benefits of the awards board was that it helped players see the broader scope of the game. As well, the data provided athletes with the ability to objectively see what they needed to do to improve. The data was particularly helpful in determining the players who started and sat on the bench.

Activities

Competitiveness Continuum Discussion

Janssen has developed a continuum where players can rate themselves on the following scale of competitiveness:
• Scared
• Wimpy
• Passive
• Indifferent
• Assertive
• Aggressive
• Fierce
After rating themselves players can learn steps they can take to transition from being a scared competitor to a fierce competitor.

In addition, Janssen takes it a step further and suggests that coaches have their players evaluate their teammates on this continuum as a tool for helping them bring out the competitiveness in their teammates. Most likely, that exercise should be implemented with discretion.

Stories

The Bike Story

Stories are a great tool for helping people learn lessons they can apply to sports and life.

A young boy in Kentucky wanted a bike, but he realized his parents couldn’t afford to buy him one. He found a job at a local grocery store to earn money to buy a second-hand used bike.  The boy rode it from dawn to dusk, but it was stolen after he had owned it for only a week. A few years later this young boy got involved in the sport of boxing. As a form of self-motivation, he would look at his opponent and imagine that his opponent was the person who stole his bike. This tactic seemed to work. As it turned out, Cassius Clay (Muhammed Ali), became one of the best heavyweight boxers of all-time.

Drills

You the Man

This drill is an effective way to help volleyball players learn to focus on passing and terminating the ball. The coach designates a terminator for both teams. The only time they earn a point is when that person ends the point. Each team must focus on getting good passes so their setter can effectively set the designated terminator. Teams are trying to make it difficult for their opponents to get good passes. As well, they may utilize special defenses, such as double or triple blocks, to prevent the opponents from terminating. Varying scoring systems can be used.

Even though coaches and players have a variety of tools and techniques for encouraging their teammates to get fired up, they will find Janssen’s book to be a quick read that may provide them with some new ideas for becoming relentless competitors.

A Talkative or Disorganized Coach Prevents Kids from Getting Sufficient Meaningful Touches in Practice

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Gym time is an expensive and precious commodity. It must be used wisely. Coaches must be punctual in starting practice and the activities within the practice must be planned and executed precisely to optimize the number of meaningful touches for their players.

Consider the example of a coach who spends an average of 20% of the practice time in activities where balls are not being touched (court setup, warm-ups, discussions, lectures, water breaks, dealing with injured players, and cool-downs.) That would mean that 24 minutes of each practice were allocated to those activities and 96 minutes were spent in activities that might directly improve a player’s skills (drills and playing).

If a player had 2.5 touches per minute of touch time that would mean she would get 240 touches during a single practice. That would be 17,280 touches during a season (17,280= 240 times 72 practices; 72 practices = 3 times per week for 24 weeks). This is highlighted in the table on the right.

If, on average, 30% of the practice time was spent in non-volleyball related activities then the player would get 210 touches per practice or 15,120 touches for the season. This is also highlighted in the table on the right.

The difference between these two scenarios is 2,160 touches over the course of the season.

17,280 touches minus 15,120 touches = 2,160 touches.

At a rate of 240 player touches per practice, that number of touches is equivalent to 9 practice sessions.

As can be seen, an extra 5 to 10 minutes adds up over the course of a season.

 

Percent of Time in Discussions

Practice Minutes

Drill Time

Less Discussions

Player Touches Per Minute Touch Time

Player Touches Per Practice Touch Time

Player Touches per Season        72 Practices

10%

120

108

2.5

270

19,440

15%

120

102

2.5

255

18,360

20%

120

96

2.5

240

17,280

25%

120

90

2.5

225

16,200

30%

120

84

2.5

210

15,120

35%

120

78

2.5

195

14,040

40%

120

72

2.5

180

12,960

 

Responsiblesports.com – Parents and Coaches Not Always on Same Page

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Results for a survey conducted by responsiblesports.com showed that parents and coaches sometimes have different priorities about competitiveness, parent behavior, concussions, and parent involvement.

What are parents looking for in a coach?

  • 77% of parents place high importance on their child’s coach being a caring person.
  • 59% of parents place high importance on their child’s coach being skilled in that sport.

How important is the scoreboard?

  • Three of four parents say a primary reason they placed their in youth sports was fun.
  • About 36% of coaches say they have dealt with parents who had unreasonable expectations about winning.

How much emphasis should be placed on competitiveness? Responsiblesports.com gives tips that keep players, parents, and coaches from getting yellow cards.

Elementary school kids

  • 58% parents
  • 76% coaches

Middle school kids

  • 78% parents
  • 86% coaches

High school kids

  • 88% parents
  • 91% coaches

Coaches place a slightly greater emphasis on competitiveness.

How do parents behave in the stands?

  • 40% of coaches say they have experienced parents yelling negatively at other kids.
  • 44% of coaches say they have experienced parents yelling negatively at officials.
  • 55% of coaches say they have experienced parents yelling negatively at their own kids.
  • 39% of coaches say they have experienced parents yelling at them.

How do parents and youth athletes feel about concussions?

  • 82% of parents say they are concerned about the risk of concussions as a result of sports.
  • 47% of parents say concussions factored into the decision over which sport their child would play.
  • 35% of youth athletes are likely to raise a concern about concussions with their coach.
  • 12% of youth athletes are likely to raise a concern about concussions with their parents.

How involved are parents?

  • Nine of 10 parents claim to be involved by attending practices and games.
  • 46% of coaches say they experience problems with parents’ lack of involvement.

The responsiblesports.com website is sponsored by Liberty Mutual and it educates parents and coaches about key concepts for instructing young athletes. This information will help parents and coaches better manage their expectations and ensure that the athletes have a more productive learning experience.

Note: the information from the responsiblesports.com website remains relevant, but  the website is no longer active (2015).

Are Your Kids in a Responsible Sports Program?

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Are you a parent looking for a program that has the right coach for your son or daughter? Are you a parent thinking about coaching your kid’s sports team and you want to be a better coach? Are you a parent looking for tips about how to maximize your children’s sports experience?

The website responsiblesports.com was developed to provide parents and coaches with information about how kids can learn valuable life lessons from sports when they are in an environment that promotes and displays responsibility.

The website provides tips for both parents and coaches about:

  • Goal setting
  • Sports safety
  • How to talk to athletes about their performance
  • ELM (Effort, Learning, Mistakes)
  • Managing emotions
  • Honoring the game
  • Teaching kids how to work with coaches
  • The coach and parent relationship
  • The coach and athlete relationship.

The website is sponsored by Liberty Mutual and features resources such as videos, articles, and podcasts on a variety of sports related topics. In addition, parents and coaches have an opportunity to take a quiz that tests their knowledge of these essential topics.

Any parent who has children in sports programs will find information on the website that can make their children’s sports experience even more valuable.

Note: The information from responsiblesports.com remains relevant; however the website is no longer active  (2015).

USA Volleyball Coaching Fundamentals Apply to All Sports

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The USA Volleyball certification program for coaches begins with IMPACT, a mandatory course for many club and school coaches.  At a high level the program covers: sports medicine/risk management, ethics, coaching philosophy, motor skill development, drill development, and parents.

The second phase in the certification process, the Coaching Accreditation Program (CAP), is more extensive.  The CAP I course is based on the book, Coaching Volleyball – Building a Winning Team. The course focuses on basic skills (forearm pass, overhead pass, serving, spiking, serve receive, blocking, individual defense), developing offensive and defensive systems, game-like drills, putting together practices, strategies and tactics, and coaching philosophies.

Highlights from a recent CAP certification held in Durango, Colorado follow:

The game teaches the game.  Skills are transferred best in game-like situations.

  • Never be a child’s last coach. Give them a love of the game.
  • Principles matter more than methods.
  • A good coach will tell his/her players, “Your job is to show up with a smile on your face. My jobs are to send you away with one.”
  • The pleasure of competition should always exceed the pressure of competition.
  • Effective coaches will tell their players what they want to see them doing, not what they did wrong.
  • Teach the whole rather than the part, for example teach the full spike rather than breaking it down in parts.
  • The power of story is an effective way to teach – guide your players’ discovery through story.
  • If punishment worked, prisoners would be angels.
  • A team’s practice must be deliberate and focused.
  •  Kids don’t know how much the coach knows about volleyball until they know how much the coach cares about them.
  • Specificity is a key in motor learning. Give students specific cues such as “Good job reaching for the ball.” This is more helpful than being a cheerleader and saying, “Good shot.”
  • There is a greater transfer in skill from random training rather than block training.
  • “Streaks Happen.” 50% of the time an athlete performs above their average and the other 50% of the time they perform below their average.

Every coach has a different philosophy and approach to helping their athletes learn. Philosophies may vary, but quality programs will be based on the above mentioned fundamentals.

 

Does Your Kid Have an Opportunistic Coach – opportunityisnowhere?

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All parents want their kids to play on sports teams where the coach takes advantage of opportunities to make the players better.

Does the coach teach kids proper techniques, tactics, and mental toughness and then catch them doing things right. Or does the coach focus only on the things the players do wrong? 

When the team loses, does the coach find ways to use the loss to make the team better? Or does the coach become frustrated and take it out on the kids?

When the best player on the team is injured, does the coach view it as a chance to allow other players to step up and contribute to the team? Or does the coach act as though the team doesn’t have a chance because their best player has been sidelined?

When the referee makes a bad call (referees are human), does the coach accept the call and challenge the players to find a way to offset the error? Or does the coach holler at the officials and accuse them of trying to make the team lose?

When the team’s best player has a chance to win the game with two seconds on the clock and misses an open shot, does the coach celebrate the fact that the player accepted a leadership role and had the courage to take the last shot? Or does the coach become angry and bench the player in the next game?

Does the coach read the letters “opportunityisnowhere” and say “opportunity is now here”?  Or does the coach read them and say, “opportunity is nowhere” (this is how the Microsoft spellchecker reads the letters).

Perception is everything.  Good coaches find ways to create opportunities in every situation!

Do Your Kids Receive Specific Instructions from Their Coaches?

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With the fall sports season in full swing, parents have an opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of their children’s coaches. Specifically, do the coaches give succinct directions?

The following examples differentiate between instructions that are not specific and those that are.

Example 1: Volleyball passes that are too low and off target.

The non-specific coach: “Come on girls, get those passes higher and to the setter!”
Result: The players shanked the next six passes before going back to their old pattern of off-target passes.

The specific coach: “Girls let’s hit 20-10 sets to the middle? Do you understand what I mean when I say 20-10?”
Result: The back row players answered, “No.” The coach said, “Make your passes 20 feet high or about 2-3 times the height of the net. They should land on the 10 foot line in the middle of the court so the setter can get to them easily. The specific instructions helped the players improve the direction, depth, and height of their passes.”

Example 2: Erratic passes (volleyball) caused by players being too upright

The non-specific coach: “Come on girls, get lower to return those serves!”
Result: Minimal long-term change in the quality of service returns.

The specific coach: “By being balanced and getting lower you will be in position to make better passes. There are two visuals that may help illustrate how low a player may need to be when returning serve. First, bend your knees much like you do when you are sitting on the edge of a bench. Another way to think of getting low is to bend your knees so that you see all of your opponent’s court while looking under the net.”
Result: These guidelines provide checkpoints for the players that will ensure more consistent passing.

Example 3: Hit tennis lobs that keep the opponents off balance

The non-specific coach: “Okay guys, mix up your lobs.”
Result: Players have mixed results as they experiment with “mixing up their lobs”.

The specific coach: “There are several ways to make it more difficult for opponents to hit effective overheads. One way is to hit lobs so the opponent has to move in two directions to hit the ball. More specifically, make them move both backwards and at least two steps to either their forehand or backhand sides. An even simpler way to look at it is to lob over your opponents’ backhand side.
Result: By having a purpose for each lob, the backcourt player hits a higher percentage of effective lobs.”

Example 4: Serve to one of three locations to develop a more effective tennis serve
The non-specific coach: “Okay guys, keep your opponents off balance with your serve.”
Result: Players may try a number of ways to keep their opponents off balance such as changing technique or altering pace and spin.

The specific coach: “Hit your serve to one of three zones: the outside corner, at the server’s body, or to the inside corner to keep your opponent off balance. For example, taller players may be able to reach balls hit to the outside corners, while they may have difficulty returning balls hit at their body. You may need to practice to do this effectively in both the deuce and ad court.”
Results: In this case, specific instructions provide the server with target areas for service practice. As well, the directions provide tactical guidelines for match play.

Do your kids’ receive specific directions from their coaches?

If you aren’t sure, ask your kids the following questions:
• Does your coach communicate in a way that helps you understand exactly what to do in drills, practices sessions, or game situations?
• Does your coach provide you with specific instructions for improving?
• If not, do you ask questions about what the coach means specific to your abilities? For example, specifically what does the coach mean when he/she says, “mix up your serve?”
• Does the coach use keys, single words, or short phrases to concisely convey a key message? Keys for the above examples might include:
o 10-20 pass
o Get low and look under the net
o Lob over the backhand
o Inside corner, body, or outside corner
If you don’t have keys, ask your coach to help you develop keys.
• Do you let your coaches know when their concise instructions help you understand a concept, technique, tactic, or how to correct a mistake? For example, the player might say, “By following your advice, I won three points in the first set by lobbing over the backhand side”.
• Do you ask your coach for clarification when specific directions are not given?

Quality coaching requires a coach who provides specific directions and players who communicate about the effectiveness of those directions. Top notch players and coaches are first-rate communicators.

 

Wanted: Best Coaches in the Country to Coach Bad Players

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As the fall sports season rolls around, parents have to deal with the issue of who is going to coach their kids’ (fill in the sport) team. Will the coach know how to deal with young kids? Can they teach skills? Will the kids get to play a fair amount of the time? And God forbid, will the coach be a pedophile?

There is an axiom in individual college sports such as golf, tennis, skiing, track and field, “Players with A-level talent always beat players with B-level talent. It is not possible to coach B-talent to beat A-talent”. Right or wrong, some coaches believe that rule holds true in youth sports also.

In other words, many winning college programs have coaches whose primary strengths are recruiting, motivating, and organizing. They have winning records because they recruit more players with A-level talent than other coaches and they do a better job motivating them and keeping them happy.

John Calipari recently addressed this axiom as it relates to team sports. He was asked whether it’s difficult to get young blue-chip talent to jell as a team. In other words, how difficult is it to coach a group of A-level talent players?

The $5.2-million-dollar-a-year coach responded, “I’ll tell you what’s hard – coaching bad players.”

If it is really difficult to coach bad players and A-talent always beats B-talent, then why bother coaching bad players or players with B-talent? The answer is simple. All superstars begin their careers as bad players, even if they have A-talent. And the number of athletes with B-talent, or less, far outnumbers the elite players who play in the Olympics or major championships.

Hats off to Calipari for being able to recruit and manage elite athletes. He is a successful coach based on the number of games his teams have won.

Kudos also go to the coaches who like to work with bad players and those with “B” talent or less. In fact, a case can be made that this group of coaches should occassionally grace the cover of Sports Illustrated.

In other words, we need to have the absolute best coaches at the entry level, not on prime time television. Having the top coaches mentor young athletes when they start playing a sport will keep kids in sports and motivate them to be active for life. That will solve a lot of the problems facing our society.

 

Thoughts from an Olympian about Athletic Excellence

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As the Olympics wind down and the U.S. had mixed results in the volleyball, it seems timely to reflect on a webinar hosted by USA Volleyball several months ago featuring Tom Hoff and John Kessel. Hoff was a 6′ 8″ middle blocker for the 2008 USA Olympic team and Kessel oversees grassroots development and disabled volleyball for USAV.

Key points from the 1 1/2 hour discussion follow:

Coaches
• A good coach does more than call balls in and out.
• Good coaches set their players up to be successful over a long period of time.
• A good coach will empower players on the court.  Good players will take the coach’s lead and own what they do on the court.

Playing
• Many people want to be the best player on the court. I always wanted to be the worst player. When I first started playing that was often the case. I always liked being challenged to improve.
• I was only 6’8″ and could touch 11’9″. At the top level that meant I had average talent. To counter that, I studied the statistics of rotations. It helped me be successful as a player and develop my IQ as a player.

Skills
• At the top level the best players are those who eliminate errors. They are the players who passed the ball the best. They are very selective in choosing when to take chances.
• Watch what the ball is doing on the other side of the net – track the ball.
• Great players have great court awareness.

Goal Setting
• The way to accomplish goals is to successfully execute simple actions more often than the opponent.
• The pursuit of goals may seem maniacal. Players who remain focused and determined in the pursuit of a goal will find the journey of pursuit rewarding enough.

Mental toughness
• The toughest hitters are the ones who want the ball on big points and take tactful swings on tough balls.
• Great players will showcase the areas where they can eliminate errors. They will walk the walk.
• Great players play in the moment. They don’t get flustered. They focus on the task at hand and aren’t worried about what has happened in the past or what might happen in the future.

Practice
• Never say “No” to a setter who wants to practice. Hitting will get to practice hitting and timing and improve their ball-handling skills.
• During season we practice 20-32 hours a week, volleyball specific. We spent 6-10 hours a week in strength and conditioning. We spent several hours a week watching video. The most underrated aspect of a training schedule is rest and recovery.
• It is imperative to train at full speed.

Stretching
• The Center for Disease Control has done over 300 studies on stretching. Not one of them shows that stretching prevents injuries.

Cross Training
• If younger players are going to play other sports, soccer is a good complementary sport. Soccer players must be good at tracking the ball. That is a skill essential to volleyball.

Sports Career
• Time works against you as an athlete. Use your time efficiently.
• Everyone wants to be successful, but many people are not willing to do what is necessary to achieve the desired results.
• Focus on the journey, not the end results.

Blocking
• Blocking is the toughest skill.
• In theory a middle blocker has to be at the opponents’ point of attack on every ball.
• The purpose of blocking is to lower the kill efficiency/percentage of the other team.

Time Spent Hitting the Ball
• In 2008 the Olympic team spent about three weeks in China practicing and playing matches. Even though they hit thousands of balls during this period, on average, the players actually spent a total of about 27.4 seconds hitting (contacting) the ball for that entire period.