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Life Lessons Life Lesson #51: Team Management = Time Management Run your team like a small business Each January, I attend my annual coaches training event at the American Baseball Coaches Association Convention. Bringing thousands of coaches together from across the nation, the weekend involves clinicians from professional and college coaching ranks offering expertise and wisdom. Following that, Lifeletics conducts our own coaches training through our Spring Training Clinics offered to youth leagues. On a single day, instructors work athletes through a 3-hour instructional clinic, while speakers discuss coaching technique and best practices to league managers at the same time. It solves the league responsibility of professional coaches training, and offers league member athletes the opportunity to tune up for tryouts and spring season. This year, Lifeletics conducted coaches training events for 9 league organizations. Each and every event offers the opportunity to learn and improve our own presentation. With question and answer sessions, and general discussion, everyone (coaches and clinicians) walk away from the day with something new and valuable to incorporate. In addition, I?m able to get a real sense of what obstacles and problems are most common for youth managers. I can also get a feel for what information is most effective and valuable to share with volunteer coaches. While many managers have coached for several years, the fact remains that their background often involves limited playing experience. With that being said, I?d like to share the most valuable message that was incorporated into this year?s presentation: TEAM MANAGMENT Leaving the intricacies of throwing, hitting, catching and sliding aside, the core responsibility of a youth coach is team management. In Life Lesson #42 Practice Planning, we discussed the different roles and responsibilities of a manager versus a coach. As most volunteers end up being both, it is important to handle manager responsibilities first? so that once out on the ball field, you have the opportunity to coach. The most effective approach in taming the task of youth sports coaching is to treat the responsibility like a mini-corporation. At Lifeletics, we use a series of four documents to put the role of youth coach into perspective: SEASON PLAN Designed as a top-level checklist, the Season Plan lists all the different topics that a manager should cover over the course of a season. First categorized by a general classification (i.e. Team Defense, Individual Defense, Team Offense, Individual Offense, Team Basics), each top level category has a detailed list of areas that need to be covered. Under the Team Defense tab, for example, you can find 1/3 Defense, Bunt Defense, Rundowns, Cuts/Relays, etc. It is the goal of a team manager to cover each detail in practice a minimum of two times. Achieving this fulfills your responsibility to train and develop your athletes before passing them on to the next volunteer. It also allows you to expect your players to execute to a reasonable level, as you have practiced most situations two times. PRACTICE PLAN From the season plan, pull individual specifics and plug into a single practice plan. Involve multiple time blocks, which you assign to one of your Season Plan categories. From those categories, pull individual specifics and plug into the stations during that time block. For example, a time block from 4:00-4:25 might be dedicated to Individual Defense. Within that time block, the practice plan will show that there are three stations dedicated to items falling underneath the Individual Defense category (examples: fly ball repetitions, ground ball backhands, underhand feeds, etc). With several time blocks clearly outlined, and the specific topics and drills planned within them, it?s easy to see how much information a coaching staff can cover. You can review recommendations on putting together a practice plan in Life Lesson #26 Practice Planning. NOTE: Create your practice plans on a computer, and save electronic copies. Imagine how easy year two, three, four become when you have 15 practice plans on your hard drive! PRACTICES OVERVIEW The third sheet that Lifeletics describes during coaches training is the Practices Overview document. This is nothing more than a list of what was covered at each practice. The page should list the date of the practice, and then what specific categories and associated topics were covered. It helps to have an overview snapshot of what you?ve covered so that you can mix in appropriate levels of fun, competition, repetition and instruction as needed. GAME PLAN The final document that we share is a sample game plan. Very similar to the individual practice plan, a Game Plan helps to organize the time leading up to, during, and after a single game. Teams are typically asked to arrive one hour prior to game time, a properly structured game plan will highlight the various player and coach responsibilities leading up to the first pitch. Examples include run/stretch/throw, ?Team Time? (review of team signs, disciplinary issues, game preview, etc), groundballs/flyballs, pregame routine, pitcher warm up, and field prep. The idea of following a structured game plan takes the responsibility off of management and puts the focus of your energy on coaching ? which is what the kids need once you show up to the field. The thought process behind these four documents comes from hundreds of discussions with volunteer coaches, and helps to bring the daunting task of managing a youth team into perspective:
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