Parks and Rec director, Jason Schaitz, shares eight tips on how to run a successful coaches meeting.
Your coaches are the face of your program to all your participants, so it’s imperative your goals and expectations for the program are ingrained in them. Your meeting is the kick off to your season as generally your teams will begin practice shortly after. This is the only time you will have all your coaches in the same room so make the most out of it to prepare your coaches for the upcoming season. Make the coaches meeting mandatory, even for returning coaches.
Here are several things you can do to take your coaches meetings to the next level:
1. Set Expectations.
Make sure you set clear and concise expectations. All recreation sports leagues should be about teamwork, skill development, positivity, sportsmanship, and fun, not winning. Review your code of conduct as well as your league policies and have them sign it. Have a no tolerance policy on unsportsmanlike conduct.
2. Rule Review.
Don’t use this time to simply take out the rule book and read it to your coaches. To save time, require your coaches to read the rules ahead of time and come to the meeting with questions. Bring in your referees to assist you with this so they can hear it from their perspective and what they are looking for when they make the calls. Go over key points and leave the rest up to them to ask questions.
3. Presentation.
Have a Powerpoint to hit the hot points and keep you on track in your meeting. If you can’t do a Powerpoint create a detailed agenda.
4. Bring In Coaches.
Bring in your local high school or college coaches to address the group. They can go over how to plan a practice, give examples of drills, talk about coaching philosophy, how to teach kids, etc. These coaches can also be great advocates for your program and a resource for you to bounce ideas off.
5. Videos.
Use videos to teach and to help support your message. There are a few great organizations out there that have coach training programs and you can find some decent training videos on YouTube as well.
6. Talk About Practice.
The skill development of the players will rely heavily on well organized and effective practices. Whether you provide the practice space or coaches do it on their own, it will be limited so you can’t stress enough the importance of having a plan for each practice. Scrimmaging the entire time or doing the same low level drills will not be beneficial to the kids development so provide your coaches resources to get the most out of practice.
7. Provide Resources.
Make sure to give them resources that they can use on their own such as where to find additional training or drills for practices, how to create a practice plan, guides to teaching young athletes, etc. Many new coaches may not know where to find quality resources. Stress to them that the more they put into their teams the more they will get out of this experience.
8. Other Topics to Address.
You don’t just have to talk about rules and policies. Other important topics to address are league goals and expectations, rosters, organizing their team, parent/coach meetings, managing team parents, facility maintenance guidelines, etc. This will be the only time you have all your coaches in one room so use it effectively to go through everything about your program.
As the league administrator, it is your job to guide, train, and provide as many resources as possible to your coaches. If you have great coaches, you will have a great league.
For more resources on youth sports, visit the League Source website.
