Tips for Coaching a Terrible Team.

Mid-season is quickly approaching and things may not be going as you had hoped. There are a number of reasons that this could be happening. You may have had a number of injuries, your team may just be under performing, or you might not be very talented. Injuries have a way of working themselves out and there are numerous articles on fixing an under achieving team. I want to focus on teams that simply are not good because the players are not skilled and athletic.

I have coached every level of sports from youth league to college athletics. I have also won just about every championship available to a coach including league titles, sectional championships, regional championships and more. I have also coached a handful of teams that I quickly discovered were going to struggle during games. It was never for a lack of effort or preparation, it was simply because they were not very good and there was not enough time during our season for them to develop the skills needed to be a good team.

There are four things that you can do to make your season a better experience for everyone and keep your team playing hard.

1.  Be honest with your team. Kids are smart. They know if they are not very good and you will have a lot more credibility with them if you say it out loud. Tell your team, “WE are not very good.” Use the word “we” so that they know that you are in this with them. Explain to them what you are going to do to help them get better and more importantly what you are going to do to help them be more competitive in games.

2.  Defense, Defense, Defense. The greatest equalizer in any game is defense. It is also the best friend of a team that is limited in skill. Defense is essentially the same in all sports and relies on one major factor: effort. If you have athletes that are good lacrosse players, but bad basketball players they can still play defense. As the coach you need to pound this into their minds. Make them understand that it is never alright to give up points. Teach them to remember and hate every time a point is scored on them. You will be amazed at the impact this attitude has on the final score.


3.  Quarters. If you coach a sport that plays an opponent only once per season, you can focus on quarters, periods, innings, or whatever the measurement is for your sport. Set a team goal for the game to win one quarter or three innings. Set a goal that is attainable for the team.

4.  What is a win? A couple of years ago I was coaching a middle school girls basketball team that struggled. We had managed one win, competitive in a couple others, and were destroyed a number of times. Our final four games were against teams that had already beat us by an average of 24 points. That is a lot in middle school basketball. I walked into practice the day before the first of the four games with a whiteboard. It listed all four opponents and the margin of victory of the first game.

I told the team that we probably weren't going to win any of the games and that was ok. The important thing was to show that we had improved more than any of these teams. On the whiteboard was a third column labeled Win/Loss. I told the team that if we lost by a closer margin of victory that we were calling it a win. At first they thought it was silly, but what it did was make them play their butts off in the fourth quarter. They became a team that was diving for loose balls, while being down by 15 points late in the final quarter. They embraced the idea so much that in our final game they were down by 11 going into the fourth. That was the margin of the first game. To start the quarter, I told them win the quarter and win the game. They played so hard that the other coach had to call a timeout because we cut the lead to three with two minutes left. We didn't win the game, but we definitely won the battle and this group of kids improved more than you can even imagine.

The reality is that very few teams truly compete for their league title and if you coach kids that are JV or younger, it doesn't even matter. The focus should always be on getting better and being the best athlete and team that you can be. If you truly believe this than you can have a team that goes 3-10 and honestly call them a great team.

When Should You NOT have Captains?

As long as I have been alive sports teams have had captains. As coaches, we have been conditioned to accept that this is how it should be. I'm going to ask you to really think about whether your team should have captains. I'm not going to tell you that you shouldn't, but I am going to tell you that if you have captains, but do not have leadership, you are setting yourself up for team turmoil.

Being a captain of a team is not a job that should be taken lightly. It comes with great responsibility that most youths are not experienced in or even capable of. It takes a very special young athlete to be able to handle the responsibility and pressure that comes with the job. Jeff Janssen is one of the most knowledgeable gurus in sports leadership and he has an entire program dedicated to mentoring team captains. His book is almost 200 pages on the topic. It is important to understand that you can't elect captains without educating and training them on what being a captain is.

Many athletes believe that being a captains means that it is your job to yell at your team when things are not going well or when the team is not playing well. This is NOT what a captain is. A captain needs to be a player that mediates team conflicts, acts as a liaison between the players and coaches, gives teammates positive reinforcement and motivation and takes personal responsibility for the team. This takes a very mature and confident young man or woman to accomplish.

There are a few situations where you should absolutely look closely to see if captains are the best idea for your team leadership. Please accept that these statements are very general and there may be exceptions.

1. Any team that is not at the varsity level. Young kids do not have the skills needed to be an effective captain, nor do they have the skills needed to accept the leadership of their peers. They have not developed the communication and inter-personal skills needed.

2. Girl's teams. Girls are much more social than boys. Girls are also much more concerned with making their teammates upset and they often worry about their friends being mad at them. Likewise, they are more likely to take any criticism from a peer as a personal attack.

3. You don't have two or three players that are obvious leaders. If it takes you more than two seconds to know who your captains are, then you probably don't have any.

Remember, these are general comments. There are many girls and younger players that will be great captains. These are scenarios where you should be absolutely sure that you have the right athletes before naming captains.

If you decide that you do not want captains, you still need leadership on your team. How do you get it?

1. Everyone is a captain. Teach your team that you expect everyone to act like a captain. Explain the expectations for them. Your true leaders will be very obvious in a short period of time to you and the team. The players will have individuals that they look to and you will get leadership without the stress of the title of captain.

2. Weekly captains. Change who the captains are week to week. Base your decision on practices and games from the previous week and explain to the team on Monday why the players were selected. Each week you will announce the captains. Some weeks the names will change and some weeks they will not.

3. Delegate certain jobs to different players that you want to take on leadership roles. One player might be in charge of your dynamic stretching, another could get their position started during their individual time, and another could be in charge of putting a schedule together for who gets water on game day.

You can have a leader without a captain, but you can not have a captain without a leader. Develop the leader and then and only then should you have a captain.

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How to communicate with your players, so you don't have to talk to the parents.

The title of this article implies that you don't want to communicate with the parents of your players. This isn't what it means at all. The fact is that we should all want to create an environment with our parents that is open and based on the principle of togetherness. The point of this article is to limit the number of negative conversations that you need to have during your season. In 19 years, I have had three of these conversations and each time it was because I dropped the ball in my communication with the athlete. If you are pro-active and honest with your athletes you will have few if any issues with your parents.

Here are a few tips to use to have an open relationship with your athletes.

1.  Complete a skill assessment on each athlete during your first week of practice. Even if you are not having cuts, assess each player on their game skills, athleticism, knowledge of the game, etc. Sit down with each player and go over the assessment with them. Ask them if they disagree with anything on it. You will find that the vast majority will have a realistic opinion of their ability. Tell each player where you see them fitting into the team. If they are not a likely starter make sure they understand that things can change and mean it!

2.  Talk to every player, every day about anything except for your sport. Ask them about their day, their classes, their dog, or their favorite song. You can spend as little as 10 seconds with a player. They will see that you really care about them as people. This will help create that bond that you need to have a tight team and it will give you the benefit of the doubt with the player when they are feeling down about their play.

3.  Publicly praise your role players. Make sure that everyone understands that every contribution is significant to your success as a team. It isn't the superstar that is the difference between the best teams, it is the role player. If your lesser skilled players feel that they are an important piece of the team, he/she will never complain about their playing time.

4. No surprises.  If you are changing your lineup, you may be crushing one of your players. The player that is no longer starting may run through a number of emotions: anger, embarrassment, and disappointment to name a few. The day before the game you should speak with the player not starting. In that private conversation let him/her know the reason why. Be honest with them. If they aren't getting it done, let them know. They will appreciate not being blindsided on game day when you announce the starters and it will give them a day to digest the information.

If you do all of the above and incorporate these simple rules for your parents you will have few if any issues with the parents through the season.

Here are a few rules for you to have with your parents.

1. You will never talk to them about playing time or about other athletes. It isn't right to talk about other athletes with them. They should understand that. As for playing time, their child should talk to you about what they need to do to get better. When you have that conversation, be honest and also sensitive to their feelings. You don't want to lose the kid. If they do what you asked and do improve....get them on the field!

2. If there is a concern, the parent should encourage the athlete to speak with you first. If the parents, feel that was not successful, they should then speak with you. If at that point, they feel unsatisfied, then and only then should it elevate to the athletic director or principal.

The strategies with your players are the important piece here. The more you communicate with your players and the more loved and appreciated that they feel, the easier your season will be and the fewer problems you will have.

Three Ways to Make Your Practice More Competitive

We all want our teams to be competitive and to fight during games. If you want your athletes to compete at their highest level than you need to practice it. You need to create opportunities for them to be challenged and to compete every day. If you don't, your practices will begin to get boring and your players will not push themselves to their limits and that will be reflected during games. Below, you will find three ways to make your practice more competitive.

1. Challenge Teams. Create teams at the beginning of the year and keep them the entire season. I generally split my teams up based on offense and defense. We will have a Black team and a Gold team that will compete against each other almost every day. You can do many of your every day drills with the teams competing. In lacrosse, you can do ground ball drills with Black going against Gold. The first team to five wins and the loser runs. You can do sport related relay races, 1 v 1's, fast break drills, etc. The drills are limitless, but the key is to always have a consequence for losing or a reward for winning. You will find that the teams you create will take a lot of pride in winning these challenges and you need to monitor the team to make sure that it doesn't begin to get unfriendly.

2. Winners and Losers. Throughout your practice you will have a number of drills that require your players to go hard against others. Many of these are designed to simulate real game situations. You can easily turn some of them into competitions. In football, when my starting defense was going against the scout team offensive we would play a game called, 4 plays/5 yards. OK, I'm not great at naming at drills! In the drill, the offense had 4 plays to gain 5 yards. If they did, the defense ran or did pushups. In basketball, you might work on killing the clock. You have 10 seconds. If the defense manages to foul, offense loses. When practicing game situations, always have a winner and a loser. It promotes competition and doesn't allow your players to walk through the drill.

3. Benchmarks. Time and measure every thing! If you are a soccer or lacrosse coach, run a timed mile every single day. It holds your athletes accountable and creates competition between each other. Football coaches do 40 yard dash and shuttles a couple of times a week. Baseball and softball, time your players running the bases and from second to home a couple of times a week. Make sure that your athletes know that the times do matter. If you do partner drills, measure who caught the most balls in 2 minutes. There are many drills that you can time and measure to make it more competitive. It forces your athletes to give their best effort every single time.

These are three ideas and concepts that will help make your practice more competitive.  Use your coaching style to create even more opportunities.  They are there!  Your players will enjoy practice more and the results will be seen on game day.

Cliques Can Destroy Your Team (Part 3)

It is now time to look at the third phase of eliminating cliques form your team. At this point, you gave your team the Vacation activity to complete and you broke down the data using the web technique. You have determined your problem areas and now you need to address them.

Most players on your team do not want to be part of something that can be destructive to your team goals. The cliques that you have are mostly Natural Cliques and easily dealt with. They are not created under the premise that anyone is better than anyone else. They were created as a means of being accepted, which is really what we all want. When you begin the process of knocking down the walls of Natural Cliques, it will be embraced because the players will begin to fell accepted by even more of their peers.

Your Cluster Cliques will be harder to break up and may never be eliminated. The key to these groups is to get each one blending into the others and be accepting and accepted by the others. The following are three ways to work toward eliminating cliques on your team.

1. Forced Groups – Break your team up into two groups and mix your clique members up between them. Label the groups in your school colors. You might end up with a Black and a Red group. Use those groups to run drills. If you coach football or another sport with a lot of players, break it up into four different groups. The point is to split the cliques up during sport specific drills to force the players to start to rely on players outside of their clique.

2. Team Buddy – Give every member of your team a “buddy.” Explain to them that each and everyone one of them is responsible for their buddy. If their buddy is not at practice, they need to pass on all information to their buddy that night, etc. When you assign each “buddy” make sure that you are splitting players up. Put a senior with a freshman. A defensive player with an offensive player. Make sure that your Cluster Cliques are splits up.

3. Compliment Game – At the beginning of practice, tell your team they have 20 sprints at the end of practice. Tell them that you are playing a new game, the Compliment Game. Choose one player on your team and don't tell the team who it is. Instruct your team that every time you hear the chosen player receive a compliment from a teammate that they lose one of the sprints at the end of practice. It gets the team talking and paying attention. They hear everyone complimenting them and creates a great sense of camaraderie.

All of the above techniques and activities will help with Fringe Players on your team, but you may want to do more. The best way to engage Fringe Players is to enlist the help of your leaders. Talk with your leaders and explain the situation to them. The Fringe Players may just not have any friends on the team or may be new to the school. They might be the only freshman on the varsity squad. Whatever the situation is, your leaders can help. Simply tell your leaders that this player(s) needs to feel the love. Tell them to make sure that they start feeling like part of the team. You will be amazed at how fast that player becomes engaged when the All-Star sits next to him/her and talks to them during stretching.

Cliques can destroy your team and the techniques in this article will help you to eliminate them. Even if you feel that your team is void of cliques, everything discussed in this article will make your team a tight, cohesive group.

Cliques Can Destroy Your Team (Part 2)

You have collected the data about your team by using the “Vacation” activity. You need to now analyze the data that is on each individuals sheet. To do this you need to get a blank sheet of paper and take the first Vacation sheet. Let's assume that the first sheet belongs to Molly. Write Molly's name on the sheet near the middle of the page and circle it. Molly chose to bring Kelly and Tina on her vacation. Write Kelly and Tina's name on the sheet and circle their names. You will now draw arrows from Molly to Kelly and Tina to represent the relationship. You will then do the same thing for each player's sheet. When you are done, you should have what looks like a web on your paper. Please see Image 1. 

Image 1

If it looks like a spider web then you are likely to have very few social problems with your team. It shows that everyone is friends with everyone else and you should avoid major conflict with your team.

There are three common issues that are exposed during this activity.

1. Natural Cliques. These cliques are not a big deal. They are generally created by situations that the athletes have no control over. If you have a middle school team, the 7^th and 8th graders will generally spend more time with their classmates because that is who they are friends with. If you have a high school team that draws from two different buildings you will have the same result. In Image 1, you will see that there are two groups of 6 or 7 players that created two separate webs. These are Natural Cliques.

2. Fringe Players. This activity will also expose players that are not generally accepted or possibly even liked by the rest of the team. In Image 1 you see that Megan wasn't listed on anyone's Vacation sheet. On the web, she doesn't have any arrows pointed toward her. It is possible that she is accepted by everyone, but just isn't really tight with anyone. That's ok. This activity will identify players that you need to make sure are included and accepted.

   

   Image 2

   3.  Cluster Cliques. These are the ones that can destroy everything that you have worked for. If you look at Image 2, you will see that there are basically four small cliques that only listed each other on their Vacation sheet. These cliques can be determined by other sports, economic status, type of student that the players are, race, etc. There are many determining factors. Natural Cliques can break Cluster Cliques into even smaller groups. 

The great thing about this activity is that once you draw the web, your social issues are right there in front of you. It will verify problems you knew you had and it will expose others that may be disasters in the waiting. In Part 3 of Cliques Can Destroy Your Team, we will discuss how to break these cliques up and how to start to mold your team in that cohesive unit that you need to be successful.

Cliques Can Destroy Your Team (Part 1)

It's the first day of practice and the faces are all familiar to you, but you know that like every year, the dynamics of this team will be different and unique to any team that you have coached before. That is the nature of what we do. It doesn't matter if there are only two new players or twenty. The culture of the team is going to be different and you need to find a way to blend everyone into a cohesive group ready to attack the new season.

It is natural for athletes to hang around other players that they are friends with. That is common for all people, including us coaches. The problem arises when these groups are defined by ability, socio-economics, or any other element that makes the individual groups stand out from one another. In these cases, measures must be taken to eliminate the boundaries that are quickly being drawn on your team. Each day, that a clique is allowed to survive, it becomes harder and harder to create the cohesive unit that you need.

This brings us to two questions.

1. Do you have cliques on your team?
2. How do you fix it?

The best way that I have found to determine if cliques do exist on your team is to do a small activity called “Vacation.” You give each of your athletes a blank sheet of paper and ask them to write their name at the top. You then tell them that you are sending them on vacation to a spot of their choice. It can be Disney World, the Caribbean, Europe, or any other place that they would like. Have them write the location on the paper. Having them write and think about the destination deflects from the real purpose of the activity. Finally, tell them that they can bring three teammates on the trip with them. Have them write those names on the paper and ensure them that no one other than you will ever see the papers.

Your players will want to know why they are doing this activity. DO NOT tell them until after you have collected them. It is alright for them to know that you are concerned about cliques because it shows that you care about them and the team. You should keep this information from them until the exercise is over, so that it doesn't impact their honesty when filling out their Vacation form.

In Part 2 of “Cliques can destroy your team”, I will discuss how to analyze the data that you collect from the Vacation activity.

Building a Close and Cohesive Team

I place an enormous emphasis on the concept of “team.” I believe that our success as a team will be in direct relation to each individuals willingness to put the team above their individual wants and needs. I preach that each individual must improve and contribute for the success of the group. I put such a large emphasis on this concept for three reasons.

1. The team will be more successful.
2. The athletes will learn life skills that will help them become successful adults.
3. The concept helps all team members feel that they contribute.

The following are activities or philosophies that I use to improve our team cohesiveness:

Team Building Activities – Early in the season, I will do traditional team building activities such as the human knot, hula hoop chain, etc.

Forced Groups – When I have athletes that are in different grades playing with each other for the first time, I create work groups based on ability. I make sure that there is a mixture of each grade in each group.

Belonging – Our athletes love to play, but as important to that is a sense of belonging. I am honest with my athletes as to what their ability is and what I expect from them. I make them realize that no contribution is too small. If they have limited skills and they do the smallest thing in a game, that is great! We will then work on them doing it twice during the next game.

Team Time – The day before a game, we start practice by circling up as a team for Team Time. Holding hands, each individual announces their personal goal for the game. It must be something that is measurable. For example: a touchdown or 10 saves or 6 rebounds. If the majority of the players reach their individual goal, we know that the game will be a success. The day after the game, we will review who met their goals and see the correlation between that and the outcome of the game. This also allows us to be successful even if we lose the game.

Locker Signs & Announcements – Each day of a game the athletes find a sign on their locker. The sign wishes them good luck and always has at least one motivation quote that ties in to what we have been doing at practice and/or during our classroom time. The day after the game there is always an announcement regarding the game.

Caring – Each day during warm-ups, I make sure that I get around to each and every player. I ask them how their day was and other questions about them. It never has to do with the sport. I make sure that they understand that I care more about them as a person than I do as an athlete. My concern for them is genuine and it contributes to a very cohesive team.

In upcoming articles, I will break these activities down in greater detail and address other topics that are critical to being a successful coach.