Let's Get Better...

As the regular season comes to a close, it’s easy to look back and generalize on a ‘good’ year or a ‘not so good’ year. Maybe injuries, chemistry, parents or just odd circumstances kept you from reaching the preseason potential you had for your team.

While it’s time to maybe reflect, it’s also an opportune time to gain valuable feedback as a coach.

End of season surveys can be incredibly valuable, perhaps painful to read and understand and perhaps of no value at all but there aren’t very many opportunities for coaches to get feedback directly from athletes and parents in a short and relevant window like the end of a season.

There are some surveys already built. An effective and very comprehensive download can be found at ‘USOC Coaching Effectiveness Tool.’ Within this one document is an Athlete section, an NGB or in the case of club volleyball, the club or the Az. Region, and finally, a coaches self evaluation. There are other surveys you can download from other clubs, other coaches or even coaching programs dealing with youth sports.

Another is the USA Volleyball Pre/Post Season Evaluation Form which is a generic form that can be filled out by athletes, parents, club personnel and even you!

The essence of this exercise is simple: to get better. As coaches, it’s our job to get better; better at practice plans and managing relationships with players and parents, playing time issues and dealing with our administrations whether club or school. To sit pat, to not try to gather feedback makes you the same coach you were last season. The problem is that the game changes constantly, the players change constantly, social norms and communication outlets change constantly. If you don’t keep up, you’ll find yourself on the outside looking in.

Part of an end of season survey that is needed is courage; you are probably going to hear things you don’t want to hear. Criticism that you are apt to take personally but it’s no secret when dealing with 10-12 girls for a sport that only allows six at a time to play, you are not going to make everyone happy. That said, ask questions that YOU need answers to?

What do YOU want to know about YOU as a coach? What questions would you ask a coach that you were being coached by? What components do you want to hear about: practices? Tournaments? Travel tournaments? Is there parts of your coaching you would like feedback on specifically: communication? Professionalism? Feedback to players?

This is YOUR survey. Get the answers you want but keep this in mind. If you want honest answers, give the respondents a wall to hide behind. If they want to put their name on the survey, so be it but ask them to get them to you in an anonymous fashion to ensure a purer feedback to your coaching abilities.

Going forward it’s a good idea to give your team’s infrastructure feedback opportunities a few times during the season. Does that mean you meet with every parent and athletes one a week or once a month? Probably not, as time for everyone is limited these days. A mid season evaluation is easy and can give you some feedback early on to help head off problems that might be arising.

Either way, don’t be afraid of what will be said about you. Take the feedback as useful information to further your career. Use this tool to get better for your fall season. Watch other more experienced coaches at camps and clinics and see what they do well, and maybe what YOU wouldn't like if YOU were their athlete.

Let’s get better. Our athletes deserve nothing less than our best. We owe it to them.