Low Hanging Fruit...

In December of 2021, the Arizona Region held their semi annual Coaches Education Weekend. The preeminent Youth Coaching guru in the US headlined a cast of cadre that included a former NBA coach and author, a lynchpin of the science community of Motor Learning and new author, a USA Women’s National Team assistant coach who talked about scouting at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, a gold medal Paralympian in Sitting Volleyball and one of the best Cadres in USA Volleyball.

The line up was announced 70 days before the event. In 2019, affectionately now known as “pre pandemic,” Education weekend hosted over 120 coaches between indoor and beach presentations. So this clinic was going to be a home run! People had been locked down for a year or more. Now was the time for coaches to come out and learn. With over 1000 coaches in the Region now, registrations opened and on the first Friday night of Education Weekend, we had our number!

22.

.02% of the coaches in the Az. Region attended.

What had we done wrong? Reaching out to some coaches, they complained that it was a busy weekend. There were a few preseason tournaments going on, but not everyone was playing in them. .02%? One coach joked that maybe the coaches in the Region thought they knew everything already. Maybe they weren’t far off…

This is not a reprimand but a call to action. Coaching is THE silver bullet. A great coach can make up for a mediocre or poor club, but a great club cannot make up for a poor coach.

YOU are part of the equation of athletes improving, enjoying the sport, pushing themselves to their limits and beyond.
YOU can also be part of the equation of athletes quitting the sport, feeling insecure about themselves and their performance and inflicting physical and mental harm.

Being better at coaching is paramount. Not just the X’s and O’s but the relationships, the psychology, the methods and philosophies of training.

So what did we do wrong?

Before the advent of YouTube and streaming services, if you wanted to watch a program, you had to be in front of the television on THAT channel at THAT time on THAT day. And to find out what happened next on the show, you had to tune in the next week at THAT channel at THAT time and THAT day again. You had to have some skin in the game. When you wanted to watch a sporting event, you had to tune into the station at the time it began. There was a commitment to that event you had to make. If you wanted to know who won the Oscars, you watched the presentation or you had to read about it the next day in the newspaper, there was no in between.

Of course, now, you can watch games hours, days or even weeks and months later. You can find most television shows streamed later and you can binge watch an entire season to your hearts content. No more waiting, no skin in the game. Oscars are streamed and if not, just pull the phone out of your pocket to see in real time who won. The same with sports. If you didn’t get to see the Super Bowl, you could have just as easily pulled up ESPN and watched the play by play. There is no more commitment. What you want is at your fingertips, when YOU want it, WHERE you are at WHATEVER time fits YOUR schedule.

Seemingly, the Netflix-verse applies to coaching as well.

If you want a coaching drill, pull up “volleyball drills” on Google and get 24,700,000 in a half a second. Type in “coaching drills” you YouTube and the scroll seems endless. Why do you need a clinic? Everything is at your fingertips on YOUR time where YOU are at THAT moment.

Following this logic, how many of you would be comfortable rewiring the electricity of your house watching a YouTube video? How about learning to surf or base jumping with a wind suit? Why not? Because there is the potential for disastrous and life changing results.

Yet isn’t coaching the same? How many bad coaches in youth sports leave a scorch earthed landscape in their wake? Kids quitting sports, feeling insecure or suffering from mental and physical anguish- how is this not disastrous and life changing?

How many questions are asked during these video or google interactions? How much feedback can coaches get from these quick hits? Further, is the coach able to disseminate the drill to see if it fits the skill set, age, playing level of their athletes. Is it a drill that fits with the ideas of how athletes learn best; motor learning principles and philosophies and the optimal ideas of teaching?

An organized clinic is an exceptional learning environment. How many times have you, as a coach, gone to a college practice to watch how that coach does it? The ASU coach, Sanja Tomasevic, recently commented that in her five years at the helm of the Sun Devil program, she has had 4 coaches e mail her and come watch her practices.

4.

True learners have skin in the game. They are reaching beyond the comfort of their couch and mouse. They venture to other avenues to gain more knowledge. Imagine the thing you are most passionate about in your life other than your family and children. How did you learn more about this? Was it by taking the easiest road possible?

E mail a college coach and ask to come watch their practice. Call the Region office and let’s set up an online or in person coaching clinic for your club coaches. Reach out to Coaching Education in the Region and let’s grab some coffee. Have a dialogue that will force your mind to work a bit more, open to ideas, debate others. This is how we learn as humans.

You can take any drill online and run it, but it is helping your team? Is it efficient and the best way for your team to learn? Or is it the lowest hanging fruit.

Imagine coaching athletes with this mentality: always taking the easiest way out, never pushing themselves and always making sure the learning they did was on their time table, where they want it to happen when they feel like it. How successful a team would you be coaching?

Excuses, rationalizations and doing it how it’s been done before is laziness in any profession. You are coaching the next generation of leaders and Mothers and Fathers and teachers. Can this be any more important?

Season 7 of Seinfeld is a Netflix subscription and two clicks away. Bringing out the best in that 14 year old learning the game shouldn’t be so easy.