Rules

Every sport official will tell you the same thing. Almost every single coach they’ve ever met thinks that they know the rules, and that almost every single coach they’ve ever met… is sadly misguided about their own rules’ knowledge. A smart coach will take the time to learn the rules of his or her sport; the coaches that are wise enough to make their tactical decisions based upon the lesser-known rules of a contest… win.

The number one mistake that almost every coach makes is that they do not understand the differences between the levels. Let’s look at football for a moment. There is youth ball, high school football, collegiate sport, and then the NFL; and all of them have different rulebooks, and different points of emphasis. Those end zone celebrations that you see on Fox on Sunday, they are illegal at every other level, indeed, they are cause for a player’s ejection from youth ball. A coach that yells at an official that he saw the same thing on television… is a losing coach.

Buy a rulebook. I cannot emphasize this enough. Buy a rulebook and spend hours going through it. Read it from cover to cover, and then read it again. Contact your local officials organization and ask them questions. Ask whether they’ll allow you to visit one (or more) of their meetings and find out what they are talking about. Think about it for a moment, while you are spending hundreds of hours working with your players, they are spending the same amount of time learning the rules and the mechanics of their profession.

Every local sports league seems to have a list of in-house rules. Make sure you know what they are; memorize them. Indeed, this is the one area where a local coach may have an advantage on the official that is working his or her game. Talk to your official before your match, find out if he is aware of the local rules. If the official works a number of leagues, he may not be as comfortable with the local rules as you are. Don’t wait until a dispute before bringing something up; you won’t win that argument.

And always remember that the rules tend to change every year. The governing boards of the various sports are always refining their rules, making their games safer and bringing their game into the modern era. Don’t miss out on learning about these rules changes, and yes, this means that you’ll have to buy a rule book every single year that you coach. If you want to win, it’s a small price to pay. Read more...

Youth Coaching 101

In this country, youth sports have really taken off over the past twenty years or so. More kids are playing more sports, on more fields, all over this nation; and thousands of men and women are being called upon to lead these efforts. So… why do we do it? Why should we volunteer our time, our sweat, our tears, and our hearts to coaching these young players?

Maybe you drew the short straw at the parents meeting. Maybe you want your children to have a chance to win something for a change. Who knows, maybe all of us just want to be a part of something that we missed out on when we were younger. I know that there are dozens of good reasons, but I’m certain that the best reason of all is this: we coach so we can give something back to our community and to give something back to our children.

With the way most of our lives work these days, we lead an increasingly isolated lifestyle. We sprint from our homes to our jobs, and then from our jobs to the grocery store, or to our children’s schools… and then if we’re lucky, from there to a quick dinner before collapsing into a heap so we can get some sleep before the next day’s race. There is never time to become part of our community, never really time to do more than survive.

Coaching our young players allows us to be part of the answer. Study after study has shown that when children are involved in organized activities, they do better in school and within their families. So the real question isn’t how can we make time for this, it’s more like, how can we not make time for this?

I think we’ve all met the bad coach, the unreasonable guy who treats eight year olds like they are adult men from the NFL. But we’ve also met the guy who motivates his players to try new things in life, and to learn about self confidence and team-work. You know… he’s the guy that we aspire to be, the one who generates respect from his players and their families. It really isn’t that hard... if you are coaching for the right reasons.

Always, always… coach for the right reasons. You are not involved with children in order to make them better players; you are coaching them into being better people! Read more...