By Matt Settles

Coach Settles  is entering his 12th season as a high school coach in Indiana. The former collegiate player at the University of Southern Indiana is also a regular contributor to the Soccer Toolbox

August is here and for a lot of high school teams and programs across the country, the 2017 season is here and ready to get started.  A new season means the opportunity to work with a new team and group of players, an opportunity to build on success from the previous season, or maybe forget a not so successful season.  

As you start your pre-season training, make sure you don’t forget your number one priority as a coach which is keeping all your players safe.  There are too many injuries in soccer that happen each year whether its heat related, a torn muscle, or broken bone.  We all need to step back and remember our jobs are not to win every single game and bring home the state championship.  We are teaching kids a sport and must not lose track that their health and safety is in our hands.

Heat related illnesses are a big problem and every coach can help prevent these serious injuries.  Make sure your players get lots of water breaks throughout the practice and be smart if the temperature is hot outside.  Hopefully you understand and follow heat index warnings and rules as a coach, but regardless of that, every player needs to have breaks and get fluids in their body.  Encourage kids to be open and honest and that they won’t get punished for letting you know if they feel bad, fatigued, or even sick.

Your coaching staff can play a big role in helping you identify players that need to be watched closely or maybe given longer breaks if they are struggling through a session.  Don’t take a chance with pushing players through the heat.  There are no games that are worth putting a player’s life in jeopardy.

Knee injuries are becoming more and more common in soccer and even though they are not completely preventable, there are several things that coaches can do to help the cause.  Stretching and proper warm ups seem to be forgotten by some teams and programs.  This is not smart and also very dangerous for the players.

If you expect young teenagers to be able to play a full game or lots of minutes without properly stretching and warming up, you are setting yourself up for a seriously injured player.  A torn ACL has become the most common knee injury and seems to happen more often with female players due to several different reasons.  Regardless if you coach boys or girls, you play a critical role in helping to prevent these serious injuries.  

Proper warmups that include static and dynamic stretching to all muscles, as well as jogging and building up to sprinting are important to get the legs ready to play.  Also, if a player does hurt his or her knee during a practice or game, make sure they are properly evaluated before being allowed to resume playing.  The knee ligament tears can sometimes be prevented by players not playing hurt and putting themselves in a position to make the injury worse.

This post can also be found at the Coaches Toolbox, a collection of resources for coaches of all sports.

By Jeff Janssen, founder and president of the Janssen Sports Leadership Center

Jeff directs cutting-edge Leadership Academies for high school and college coaches and all across the nation including North Carolina, Pittsburgh, Illinois, Yale, Baylor, Wake Forest, and Winston-Salem State.

His site has several other useful articles for coaches and team leaders. Here is the link: Coaches Championship Network

Student-athletes of all ages often wonder, “What can I do to be a better leader?”

Fortunately leadership opportunities abound and present themselves on a daily basis. While they may be subtle, leaders are usually given at least a dozen opportunities to demonstrate leadership every single day.

These leadership opportunities are rarely available in the form of dramatic, rousing, “win one for the Gipper” type speeches, but most often present themselves in simple, yet significant interactions on a daily basis.

There’s a quote we often use in our Leadership Academies by Helen Keller that drives home the value of these seemingly trivial, yet critical leadership moments. She said, “I long to accomplish great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.”

Most emerging leaders erroneously view and define leadership as the mighty shoves reserved only for the heroic captains of the team. In actuality, however, it’s the tiny pushes of leadership that happen more frequently and have the greatest impact over time.

To help your emerging and existing leaders recognize, value, and act on the many tiny opportunities to lead every day, I have created a simple 12-point checklist. I encourage you to go over the checklist with your leaders to show them just how simple leadership can be – yet how profoundly powerful the aggregate of these 12 daily leadership actions can be on your program.

12 SIMPLE YET SIGNIFICANT DAILY TO DO’S FOR LEADERS

1. Be the hardest worker at practice today. Without fail, one of the quickest ways to impact a team is with your own work ethic. Choose to be one of the hardest workers on your team today. Not only does it set the tone for the work ethic of your program, it is also one of the best and quickest ways to enhance your leadership credibility with your teammates and coaches.

2. Be a spark of energy and enthusiasm today. Let your passion for the sport shine through today. Spread a contagious energy and enthusiasm amongst your teammates. Think about how lucky you are to be able to play and compete. Remember back to when you were a young child and reconnect with the joy you played with back then. Make your sport fun again for yourself and your teammates.

3. Model mental toughness today. Because your teammates will look to you under pressure, adversity, and stress, be sure to model mental toughness today. Bounce back quickly after errors to show your teammates how to respond to negative situations. Maintain your poise and optimism despite any mistakes you might make so that your teammates can trust and rely on you to get them through the tough times.

4. Connect with a teammate today. Leadership is all about relationships. Invest the time to build and strengthen the relationships you have with each of your teammates. Inquire about their day, challenges, and goals. Make a special and ongoing effort to get to know every athlete on your team, not just your friends and classmates. The relationship building you do each day will pay off immeasurably down the road.

5. Compliment a teammate today. Be on the lookout for teammates who are contributing to your team. Call out a teammate for making a hustle play, pushing through a weight workout, recovering quickly from a mistake, getting an A on an exam, etc. Praise the actions and attitudes you want to see repeated. As Mother Teresa once said, “Kind words are short and easy to speak but their echoes are truly endless.”

6. Challenge a teammate today. Challenge at least one of your teammates today. Positively push them and yourself to make the most of your workout. Make a friendly wager to see if they can be successful at least 4 out of 5 times in a drill. See if you both can improve your times in conditioning. Offer to stay after to help if there is anything they want to work on. Good leaders consistently invite, inspire, and sometimes implore others to greatness.

7. Support a teammate today. Odds are, at least one of your teammates is struggling with something today – it could be a performance slump, a rocky romantic relationship, a disagreement with a coach, an unglamorous role, struggling with a class, or a sick family member. Good leaders are consistently on the lookout for teammates who might be struggling and are ready to offer an ear to listen, an encouraging word, a pat on the back, or a shoulder to cry on.

8. Constructively confront negativity, pessimism, and laziness today. As a leader, have the courage to constructively confront the negativity, pessimism, and laziness that will crop up on your team from time to time. Instead of fueling the fire by joining in or silently standing by, be sure to refocus your teammates on solutions rather than dwelling on and complaining about the problems. Left unchecked, these problems can quickly grow to distract, divide, and destroy your team.

9. Build and bond your team today. Team chemistry naturally ebbs and flows throughout the course of the season. Take the time to monitor and maintain your team’s chemistry. Let your reserves and support staff know how much you appreciate them. Stay connected and current with each of the natural sub-groups on your team. Douse any brush fires that might be occurring and continually remind team members about your common goal and common bond.

10. Check in with your coach today. Invest the time to check in with your coach today. Ask what you can do to best help the team this week. Find out what your coach wants to accomplish with today’s practice. Also discuss if there is anything your coach is concerned about regarding your team. Discuss your collective insights on your team’s chemistry, focus, and mindset. Work together to effectively co-lead your team.

11. Remind your team how today’s work leads to tomorrow’s dreams. It’s easy to get bogged down during your season with monotonous drills, tiring conditioning, and demanding workouts. Remind your teammates how all the quality work you do today gives you a distinct advantage over your opponents. Help them see and even get excited about how today’s hard work is a long-term investment in your team’s goals, rather than just a short-term hardship or sacrifice.

12. Represent yourself and team with class and pride today. Leaders have the awesome privilege and responsibility of representing their teams. Take advantage of this opportunity by representing your team with class and pride today. Hold a door open for someone, sit in the front rows of class and actively engage in the discussion, say please and thank you, dress in respectful attire, etc. These tiny pushes represent you and your team with class and distinction. And they ultimately set you up for a lifetime of respect and success.

Great leaders willingly invest the time and effort to engage in these 12 leadership actions on a daily basis. In applying these principles, leaders build strong relationships, keep their team on track, and enhance their credibility.

Encourage your emerging leaders to take advantage of at least 7-9 of these actions on daily basis. Your veteran leaders should be looking to capitalize on 10 to all 12 of these opportunities.

And as a coach, I encourage you to go back and look at all 12 again as well. The 12 leadership behaviors are things that you could and should be doing on a daily basis too. Be sure that you too take advantage of these 12 tiny pushes of leadership that will ultimately make a huge impact on your team.

This article was written by Jeff Janssen, founder and president of the Janssen Sports Leadership Center

Jeff directs cutting-edge Leadership Academies for high school and college coaches and all across the nation including North Carolina, Pittsburgh, Illinois, Yale, Baylor, Wake Forest, and Winston-Salem State.

His site has several other useful articles for coaches and team leaders. Here is the link: Coaches Championship Network

By Dawn Redd-Kelly

Sometimes social media gets a bad rap for being a time sucker, which it can be. But most times, I find good stuff there.  Whether it be a good leadership article, a timely motivational quote, or (like this time) a great tweet from team building expert Jeff Janssen.

How can we be successful coaches?  Or maybe a better way to put it is how can we measure, at the end of the season or school year, that we’ve been successful?  Janssen has some ideas.

9 requirements of success:

1. Purpose: Why do you coach? As I mentioned in my another post, loving the sport isn’t your purpose (it’s your passion)…why do you coach? Why do you have player meetings?  And stress about your practice plans? Why do you watch so much film? What is my why?  I believe that athletics creates better humans (I’m biased, I know) and I believe us coaches equip our athletes with the tools they’ll need to make the world a better place and I’m honored to have a part in it.
2. Passion: Do you love your sport? Is there a fire in your bones for it?  Then that will translate over to your players and they’ll be infected by your zeal.
3. Perspiration: I feel like this is obvious, but you should be working hard, Coach. Like, really hard.  You’ve got to work hard to create relationships with your players.  You’ve got to work hard to know the different personalities on your team and how to motivate them.  You’ve got to work hard to keep your team chemistry balanced.
4. Plan: How will you handle the inevitable quarrels between teammates? How will you handle having to bench a starter?  How will you prepare your team to be clutch at the end of a competition?  How will you make sure they’re ready for post-season?
5. Patience: Can you wait for your “potential player” to bloom? Can you try different ways of teaching your leaders how to lead? Can you trust the process?
6. Persistence: I think it’s a great idea to write down your coaching goals. That way, when you hit the inevitable speed bump, you won’t be moved.
7. People: Coaches don’t succeed alone. We need mentors and assistants.  We need recruits to buy into what we’re saying.  We need families who support the coaching staff in the background.  We need an administration who’ll advocate for us.
8. Principles: Do you want to be a win-at-all-costs coach? Do you want to sacrifice your values in order to win more games?  I think a coach’s goal should be to win with honor.
9. Perspective: My guess is our definition of success will change as we grow as coaches, as we gain a bit more life experience, and as we’re humbled by our profession.

It’s hard to feel successful.  It requires a lot of work.  Let’s get ready to put the effort in so that we can be whatever our version of success looks like!

 

Are you tired of walking into practice and seeing lackluster effort from your players?  Have you had it with trying to get your female athletes to care about the team as much as you do??

Click here to find out more about Coach Dawn’s eBook: Motivating Female Athletes

Comes with a FREE PowerPoint presentation called Guarantee Your Success: Using John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success To Increase Your Team’s Cohesion.

By Matt Settles

Coach Settles recently completely his 11th season as a high school coach in Indiana. The former collegiate player at the University of Southern Indiana is also a regular contributor to the Soccer Toolbox

If you have coached high school soccer for a few years or any sport for that matter, you have come across this or probably done it yourself.  I know I have and catch myself even today trying to do too much coaching or over-coaching.  You constantly talk (or yell for some coaches) on the sidelines, you point out every good or bad thing done on the field, you are directing and organizing free kicks, corner kicks, throw ins, etc.  I know I have personally seen other coaches run down sidelines with their players as they go up and down the field.  I have also seen the ugly side of this with coaches constantly yelling negatively throughout an entire 80 minute match.  As tough as it is or may be, we all have to fight this and resist over-coaching our players.

One of the best articles I have read regarding giving instructions to soccer players was from Mike Jacobs, a former collegiate soccer coach and current Assistant Technical Director at Sporting Kansas City.  His rule with giving instructions to his players during a game was that if he could not do it quick and concise while getting all the details and important information across in a few seconds, then it was better to not say anything at all.  He would wait until a stoppage in the game occurred or even halftime if it was the 1st half to make his point.  His main message was to not distract his players while on the field.  If something was so important and critical that he had to tell one of his players during a game, then sub them off, but don’t distract them as well as distracting other players.  This comes back to over-coaching and how many times have you done this as a coach or how many times have you seen other coaches do this during a game?  

I struggle at this a lot with a new high school soccer program where most of my players are new to the sport of soccer and have never played a varsity soccer match.  There are not too many games that I don’t walk away from feeling exhausted and like I played a full 80 minute match.  I consider myself similar to most high school coaches across the country in that I want what is best for my kids.  I want to help them through the games and put them in positions to be successful, but the reality is that I can’t do everything for them.  There are no timeouts in soccer and plays can’t be stopped if something is going wrong.  Players have to ultimately gain the experience in practice and games to make the correct decisions and as we all know, these are kids we are coaching and they will always make mistakes no matter how bad we want them to be perfect.  If they learn from their mistakes though, they will be better off in the long run and you are accomplishing your job as a coach.