Injuries

“We were sailing into the playoffs when our star player sprained his ankle, and then BOOM, we were eliminated in the first round”. Sound familiar? If you’ve been around the sports world for any length of time, you have seen it happen, probably more than once. What can you do to prevent this, and how can you overcome this when it does happen to your team?

First off all, conditioning is everything! If you want to prevent most of your player’s injuries, then make sure that they are well conditioned. Devote most of your early season to getting your players in shape. Figure out your players during the early part of the season. Do not just assign the entire team to run three laps and then attend to other things while they run. Make sure that out of condition players gradually work themselves up to game shape. Assign well conditioned players even more work to improve their fitness to an even greater level.

Never ever scrimp on warm-up time! Make sure that late arriving players go through a full warm-up period before allowing them to join in the activities. Many players are injured each year when they get to practice late and then jump right into high stress movements. Do not injure your players with over-enthusiasm.

Proper rest is vital to continued good health, we all know this. So how come so many coaches put their star player into the game and then him or her there throughout the entire game, and then into any overtime that might be required? Pace your players, substitute them liberally, especially in early season games and/or blowouts. Giving everyone a chance to play doesn’t just have to be a touchy-feely idea; smart generals preserve their forces for later battles!

So, what happens to you if despite all of your planning and following of these rules, injury still strikes? Well, make sure your player gets proper medical attention for sure, and never put an injured player back in the game just because he says that he’s healthy… players never want to say “die”, so be slow to trust the word of a highly motivated player.

Trust in the rest of your team to fill the spot. After all, if you’ve followed the above plan all year long, your team will be well conditioned, warmed-up, and will have had plenty of playing time to prepare for this moment. Slap them on the back and tell them to “go give it their all!” Read more...

Drills

Every coach knows that successful practices involve a lot of teaching. Players learn the proper techniques through hours and hours of repeating the same movements. Yes, drills can be plenty boring, but they are the key to teaching any sport.

Bored players will just go through the motions. They are like a team that is getting beaten badly in the waning moments of the game. Their hearts are not in it, and their ability to learn is severely diminished. Good coaches manage to minimize the boredom, and great coaches make the most boring activity entertaining and engaging.

Make your drills fun! This cannot be emphasized enough. Yes, it is vitally important that your coaching staff is in place, during the drills, making sure that your players are using the proper techniques, but it is also important that your players enjoy, and even look forward to this activity! You have their bodies; now work on getting their brains.

Every coach will tell you that smart players are their finest assets. Savvy, well-conditioned players will beat less intelligent, yet bigger and stronger players almost every time! If a coach trains the minds of his players while he is drilling them, he will be amply rewarded in the long run. The best time to engage your players’ minds is when you are drilling their bodies. This goes hand in glove with the idea of keeping your drills fun!

Work on several things at once! While the assistant coaches are observing technique, a smart head coach will be drilling his players minds : teaching them game situations, preparing them to think for themselves when the time comes. Never waste an opportunity to succeed, and make a point of never wasting time!

Know why you are running the drill! Don’t just find some drill in an old coaching manual and decide that you can waste twenty minutes on it at the next practice. Locate drills that will improve what your players have been doing poorly. If your players are making poor tactical decisions during their games, find drills that will teach them to think about that specific game situation. There is little sense in running them through another drill that teaches them something that they already know by heart.

So, keep your drills fun, keep your players “in technique” and challenge them to think ahead. Do this, and you will be successful!
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Promoting a Positive Attitude

The head coach of a sports team has one main job. He has to get the most out of his team. Everyone wants to win the championship, but the reality of the situation is that every single team but one is going to come up short of that goal, and if coaches are going to grade themselves by whether or not they’ve won it all, there are going to be a lot of unhappy coaches and players at the end of the year.

So ask yourself. Can you make your team better than it was at the beginning of the season? Can you take a group of under-achieving players and make them into a cohesive unit? Can you teach your players something about the game and improve their outlook on life at the same time? Maybe the first thing you should work on is promoting a positive attitude within your team.

At the beginning of the season every coach meets his or her new players and analyzes their skill-set and knowledge of the game. And lets face facts, most coaches know from the first day whether or not their team is going to be competitive or not. And it just as true that many coaches get frustrated on that very first day. A good coach never lets his team see this frustration.

Focus on the positive! Speak to your players about improvement. From the very first practice, speak of learning skills and working hard. We’ve all seen the comedy routines about the impossibly naïve coach who keeps talking about having fun while his players are getting killed, but in the long run, aren’t sports supposed to be about having a good time while simultaneously building character?

As the season progresses, keep after your players. Build them up, compliment their improvement; reward them for it! If your team is competitive, don’t forget what got you there! Continue to speak of team cohesion and learning opportunities. The worst thing you can do is to forget your plan and start focusing on the title; all you are doing is setting your players up for an even greater disappointment. You’ll make them tight, nervous, and in the end… will they still be having fun then?

Remember , even if you’re not feeling particularly positive during some point in the game, your attitude and your face, your posture, your entire being must reflect that you are positive. You have all the faith in the world in your teammates. They can do this and your positive attitude shows them that. Read more...

Motivations

Every coach struggles with motivating his or her players. You’d think that this wouldn’t be a problem; you’d think that that all of your players would be highly motivated already. I mean they signed up to be your team right? They MUST all be highly motivated and ready for you to mold them into stars… right?

Okay, stop laughing. I know, I know… don’t be ridiculous! Wake up! I’m dreaming! Don’t be upset, I’ll bet you thought the same thing when you first started coaching. You entered into this avocation with the idea that everyone would be happy to see you, and that everyone would look to you for guidance. Boy, that didn’t last long now did it?

So what are you to do about your players strangely lacking drive to run through a brick wall for you? Well, the first thing you need to understand is that every player is different. Not all of your players are dynamos of energy, ready and willing to die for the cause. No, some of them just want to have a bit of fun in the sunshine.

The first thing you’re going to have to do is pretty simple. You’ve got to get to know your players and find out why they are signed up to play on your team. Because, let’s face it, if all twenty something of your players are just interested in having a bit of fun and not working very hard, you are NOT going to do anything but make yourself crazy trying to convince an entire team to see things your way. Figure out what your players want, and you’ll be able to meet them half way.

After you get to know them, and you’ve discovered what they want, it’ll be time to explain to them what you want from them. Go ahead, be honest, you’ll gain nothing by lying to your players. Tell them what you want from them and what you will do for them. Make sure that your players have the opportunity to ask you for help.

Make sure that you take this process very seriously! You’ll refer back to this over and over again during your season. When players start to drag, remind them of what you are trying to do for them. Be prepared to ask them how you can help them. Always remember, the coach works for his players harder than they work for him. He sets the tone. A coach that is not working his tail off has no business asking his players to do the same. Read more...