PELINKS4U - Coaching & Sports

Leadership Through School Sports

One coach told me that selecting his team was easy. He would tell his prospective players at tryouts that he was going to select the very best players and that he would put only the best players on the court. This sounds very fair, but should you consider attitude, leadership, and other intangible traits in your selection process? This very same coach later had serious problems with players complaining about playing time, to the point that it destroyed his team. An axiom I have heard often goes like this, "The best players don't always make the best team, but the best team always wins."

A great basketball coach opined that he selected his team on talent, but that his last two players were selected solely on attitude. A very successful football coach informed me that in many cases he played lesser talented players over others because they were more dependable, could be trusted, had higher levels of self-discipline, or were simply better leaders or more respected by their teammates. This coach used axioms such as, "Hustle over ability" and "Attitude over talent" in his explanation.

These are just some thought-provoking examples. Remember, why do you exist, and what is it that you really want your players to embrace and take with them for the rest of their lives?

It is my hope that you will be motivated to really consider writing your thoughts, beliefs, and values down on paper. Strategic planning will go a long way in giving you and your staff a solid foundation when confronted with these very important decisions and situations.

Tactical or Operational Planning

Tactical planning is where you get into the actual coaching of strategies, skills, and techniques. What kind of personality do you want your team to have? Have you determined what your offensive and/or defensive schemes will be based upon? Do your players have the talent level to execute your schemes and strategies? What strategies and skills will need to be taught to your team? What are the teaching progressions to be used for each skill?

Like strategic planning, it is my belief that the very successful coaches can show you their plans in writing. Some have already scripted every practice they will have from the beginning to the end of the season! They have a ready-made playbook or a strategies guide for their athletes. Not only can they show you a list of every strategy and skill that will need to be taught, but also on what day they will be taught. One of the most used axioms in the business world is, "Plan your work and work your plan." To give your players every opportunity for success, they must be taught every strategy and skill they will need. You, as their coach, must plan for this and then work this plan.

You can start by defining the talent pool of your players. What are your strengths and weaknesses? How can you best match your players' abilities to a particular scheme or strategy? This is determined by knowing your players' physical fitness scores in strength, speed, power, and agility. Will you need to adjust or tweak your schemes to match your players' ability to execute them successfully?

Your second step is to determine the exact strategies that will need to be taught, and list every skill that must be mastered by your players. If you coach tennis, your players should know how to execute a lob shot and to instinctively recognize when to use it. How and when will you teach the shot? How and when will you teach the strategy? Your third step is to script when you will teach each strategy and skill leading up to your first contest.

Great teachers have written lesson plans…great coaches have written practice plans. By the way, this is one of your legal duties as a coach. Never fail to have a written practice plan. I suggest strongly that you post the plan outside your office or in the locker room. Have a regular, set format for your practices (i.e. warm-up, individual drills, group drills, team drills, conditioning). Procedures and routines that are followed daily go far in developing discipline and setting high expectations.

Two Very Important Meetings

Another area of planning that is extremely important is your first meetings: the first team meeting with your players, and your preseason parent and player meeting. One of the most successful coaches in America considered the first meeting with his players as the most critical of the year, and that he spent at least three full days in preparation.

It is in the first team meeting that the tone for your team is set, your expectations presented, and you begin the first steps in developing your team's personality. John Wooden considered the strength of the team's personality a vital ingredient for success. Your team's personality is determined by their levels of commitment, loyalty to one another, unity or togetherness, leadership, and cooperation. Your team rules, expectations for practice, and the positive expectancy presented by you and how they are presented, will set the foundation for your team's journey to success. Such is the importance of this meeting that any amount of planning may never be too much.

A preseason meeting with your parents and players together is now something that we require of all our head coaches in our school district. Some schools have these meetings with other teams at the beginning of each season, with breakout meetings with the individual teams afterward. So valuable are these meetings that the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS ) publishes a handbook, Preseason Meeting Handbook, Positive Outcomes Through Activities. I suggest that you secure a copy of this handbook and use it as a guide in planning for your preseason parent-player meeting.

Bill Utsey, CAA, is the Director of Athletics for the Greenville County Schools, Greenville, SC. He is a graduate of The Citadel (B.S. Physical Education), and holds Masters and Educational Leadership degrees from The University of South Carolina. His experience includes four years as a high school principal, twenty years as a school athletic director, and head football coach with head coaching stints in other sports to include basketball, track, cross country, and golf. He is serving his eighth year in his current position.

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August/September 2006 Vol. 8 No.