Coach Development Program

You can't expect people to do what they haven't been trained and developed to do. People enjoy doing things they know how to do well.

 

Most youth sports organizations (YSOs) do not have an on-going program to manage and develop coaches. Given the crucial importance of the relationship between coach and athlete/team, this is an important deficiency. Rectifying it begins with appointing one of your strongest board members to serve as Coach Manager.

Coach Manager
It is critical that the YSO appoint a Coach Manager to oversee the Coach Development Program. The ideal person for this position is someone with significant coaching experience who enjoys people and communicates easily with them. The job involves the following:

• Serve as the YSO's representative to coaches.
• Schedule training sessions and other meetings.
• Communicate the YSO's values and culture to the coaches.
• Communicate the coaches' concerns and suggestions to the YSO board.
• Be a sounding board for parents' concerns about their children's coaches.
• Manage the coach evaluation process (see #4 below).

The Elements of a Coach Development Program

1. The Coach Manager (CM) should be a YSO board member, so important coaching issues have an advocate to bring them to the board for discussion and resolution.
2. The CM must ensure that important communications from the YSO actually reach the coaches. In an organization of volunteers, writing a letter is not enough. Care must be taken to ensure that written communications reach the coaches.
3. Annual training in Positive Coaching should be mandatory for all coaches. As part of the training coaches are encouraged to select a parent to be the sidelines "Culture Keeper" for the team. A job description for Culture Keepers is included in the workbook that coaches receive at the PCA training.
4. At the beginning of the season, coaches should be encouraged to hold parent meetings. The YSO can facilitate this process by arranging for rooms to be made available in a local school or community center. The YSO should encourage coaches to sign up for a specific date and time to meet with parents.
5. Prepare a sample parent letter and meeting agenda for coaches. PCA has developed a Parent Letter on its web site (www.positivecoach.org) that coaches can copy and use.
6. Assemble a directory of coaches (with addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses) and distributed to all coaches to facilitate communication with each other. The CM's phone and e-mail address should be prominently displayed and coaches should be encouraged to contact the CM with ideas for improvements, or in the event of problems.
7. The Coach Manager should use every training session and meeting with coaches to communicate the YSO's expectations and values, both in spoken and written form. It never hurts to remind coaches of the mission of the organization and of the importance of Positive Coaching to the future success of their athletes.
8. "Round Table" sessions should be scheduled periodically to allow coaches to say what is on their minds and to give them a chance to share ideas with each other. Ideally, a Round Table would be scheduled mid-season and another after the season (perhaps as part of a Coach Appreciation Lunch or Dinner).
9. The CM should have one-on-one contact with each coach early in the season. The CM should periodically visit practices and talk with each coach, so that the first contact between a coach and the CM is a positive one. If there is no previous contact until there is a complaint or a problem, it will be more difficult to deal with the coach than if there is already a positive relationship.
10. The CM should serve on the Positive Coaching Award selection committee to add his or her knowledge of the coaches to the decision-making process and to ensure that the coaches receiving this award deserve it.

Assistant Coach Program
Ideally, every team will have at least two coaches. To accomplish this, you may want to form an assistant coach program to develop individuals with the desire, but who lack the self-confidence to be a head coach. This may be a way to involve interested local high school or college athletes as well as adults who may not have competed in sports as children.

 

Having an assistant coach can take the pressure off the head coach in a number of ways. If he or she has to miss a game or practice because of family or business emergencies, the assistant can be prepared to cover. It also allows for better practices; athletes can be taught in smaller groups, which is difficult for a lone coach to manage.

 

Annual Positive Coaching Training
Training is a billion-dollar business in the private sector because businesses understand that the performance of their people is the key to their success. Every YSO needs to have an annual training program for coaches to let them know what is expected of them and to give them the tools to help them be successful.

 

Youth sports organizations have it more difficult, however, because coaches are volunteers rather than employees who are paid to attend training. They have to make time for training in what, for many coaches, is already a hectic, fast-paced schedule. Based on our experience with hundreds of workshops, here are the elements that make a Positive Coaching training session successful.

1. Assign responsibility for scheduling and marketing the workshop. This may be a responsibility of the Coach Manager or it may be delegated to another individual.
2. Emphasize the benefits of attending the workshop. Stress that coaches will receive practical tools at the workshop.
3. Hold the workshop at a time and place that works for your coaches. If you're not sure when/where that is, ask some coaches what works best for them.
4. Advertise well in advance and keep up the drumbeat of publicity until the event.
5. Provide refreshments, and let people know there will be refreshments at the meeting. (This is much more important than it might seem!)
6. Make the workshop mandatory. If Positive Coaching is central to your mission, then it is critical to achieving that mission that coaches attend the workshop.
7. Have board members and other leaders in the organization talk up the workshop. Develop a telephone tree to call coaches to remind them.
8. Have the Coach Manager or a representative of the board welcome the group and thank them for taking the time to attend such an important session.
9. Have enough copies of the "Double-Goal Coach Job Description" available to hand out to every coach at the end of the workshop.

Process for Evaluation of Complaints and Removal of Abusive Coaches
Setting expectations and requiring coaches to attend training in Positive Coaching will go a long way toward preventing problems. However, it will not solve every problem. The YSO needs to have a process for dealing with problem coaches. This could involve the following process depending on the severity of the problem (there may be some cases so abusive that immediate suspension of the coach is justified).

• When complaints come from parents or athletes, the CM should immediately talk with the coach to get his or her perspective. Some complaints result from parents having unrealistic expectations about their child's ability. However, every complaint should be investigated.
• If the complaints are well founded, the coach should be told what he/she needs to do to improve so that future problems will not occur. After this discussion, the parents need to be informed that their concerns were looked into and steps were taken. If the complaints come from unrealistic or inappropriate expectations, the CM should try to help the parents and athletes adjust their expectations to reasonable levels.
• Every effort should be made to help the coach improve to the point that the coach, parents and athletes are satisfied with the outcome. The CM should maintain communication with all parties until resolution is achieved.

Coach Manager End-of-Year Report and Letters
At the end of every season, the CM should carefully review the evaluations of coaches by parents and players as well as any other input he or she has received. The CM should submit a written report to the YSO board with three components:

1. Those things affecting the performance of coaches that went well this season
2. Those things affecting the performance of coaches that did not go well
3. Recommendations for specific actions to improve the coaching situation for the next season.

The CM should send an end-of-the-year letter to each coach. The letter should inform the coach of the evaluation ratings and comments received from parents and players, any positive comments about him/her that were turned in as part of the Positive Coaching Award nominations, and any other information that will help the coach improve. This letter will help to bring coaches back to coach again in following seasons.

Return to the Roadmap to Excellence.