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​​How Hudl Assist Taps into the ‘Physical, Visual and Emotional Belief’ of Player Development

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Before DVDs, before 8mm cassette tapes, and well before your average soccer team invested thousands into dissecting every inch of the pitch, Todd Kelly was already a film buff.

But when the Loveland (Ohio) girls soccer head coach says “you don’t know how excited I was” to adopt Hudl, he means it.

Version 1.0 of Kelly’s film breakdown process a quarter-century ago was a bear, nearly wearing out the fast-forward and rewind buttons on his VCR. Minutes stretched into what felt like eons as he searched for the right moments to pin down.

This was a process that typically took seven to 10 hours of his week. But to take it to the same depth that he does with Hudl? He says that would have taken him “about 20 to 24 hours”. With Assist reports, he’s doing it in as little as five.

“We couldn’t do what we do now without Hudl,” Kelly says. “There’s no way.”

In the days before a match, players get a game-planning packet that can exceed two dozen pages, using screengrabs taken from Hudl film. With every data point on Assist reports tied to video, creating one is surprisingly easy.

Need to see how a scoring chance came about? Kelly clicks to the mark on the shot chart and takes the freeze-frame he needs. Wondering why they’re so strong in the midfield? Kelly can open up the possession and pass string charts, see how their attacks built up, and stop where he needs to. No more searching blindly through an entire half of footage.

This workflow allows the Loveland coaches to communicate robust information in simple terms. A typical packet is whittled down to five talking points:

  • Three things they need to do well to win.
  • Two things they need to eliminate from the opposition.

And then on game-day mornings, head coach Todd Kelly tells them to take that packet and “throw it in the trash”. They’re done thinking.

No problem, coach. Everything’s already committed to muscle memory.

 

 

Streamlined Corner Kick Reviews

Loveland has a well-earned reputation for mastering corner kicks. And with it, confidence that they’re never out of a game. So naturally, this is the first thing Kelly looks at when he gets Hudl Assist reports on his game and scout films. Clicking the corner kicks column on the game report populates them all in one neat playlist.

 

Loveland takes pride in how it excels at corner kicks. Getting instant feedback with Hudl Assist allows the Tigers to get to work fine-tuning them immediately.

As such, Loveland dedicates expansive time preparing set pieces. It’s not uncommon to spend a half-hour of every practice on this area, and hours dissecting them on Hudl.

On game nights, the Tigers may have as many as 16 set plays on their menu, depending on how the defense lines up. That also means players have to be prepared enough to know, in an instant, which of those plays to run.

“For us to be able to do that granular and that level of detail comes from watching us on film and what our opponents are doing,” Kelley says. “So that we can prepare our kids, ‘When you see this, because we’ve seen it on film of our opponents, this is what you need to do, this is what [set piece] you need to run.’”

Pass String Data Makes a Difference

If you were to run Assist reports on Loveland’s 2017 state champion squad, you would have found the Tigers were very direct, with few pass strings. This meant at times bypassing their skilled midfield, to take advantage of some exceptional talents both at the back and up top.

This past season, Loveland’s personnel suggested they’d be able to efficiently string passes together through the midfield. But there were some issues. By looking through the pass string data on his team, assistant coach Dan Donovan made two key discoveries:

  1. When the ball was played to a Loveland player with an opponent closing down, they were turning the ball over too quickly.
    “It wasn’t that they don’t have a good touch, it was that the touch was in the wrong place.”
  2. Some of their off-ball movement was sub-par. Their runs didn’t stretch the defense enough, nor were they timed correctly.
    “It was still being, you know, standing behind two defenders too late, and it causes us to have two or three touches on the ball-carrier before the person was in the window.”

As a result, the Tigers made significant changes to their practice regimen to work on those fixes. The payoff was another regional final berth. And with it, proof that confirming your hunches with visual data strengthens your coaching lessons.

That goes for scouting, too. Loveland finds that the data on pass strings tends to reveal a lot right away about an opponent’s style of play.

For instance, if your opponent has fewer pass strings, that means they’re habitually playing direct. They’re looking to win the ball and immediately play it forward, finding their target downfield as quickly as possible. More passes stringed together suggests a more possession-oriented, build-up approach. They might knock it around the back line, trying to create passing lanes by drawing opponents out of position.

“You have the opportunity to create all three of those things that are important in player development—physical, visual, and the emotional belief.” Donovan says of Assist. “That’s how they’re going to work hard at it, repeat it, and not let it become a bad habit again.”

 

Crawl Before You Walk

The advantage of Assist is easy to understand. Donovan’s advice to coaches new to Hudl is to focus first on the essentials. That means a two-step process:

  1. Understand your team’s strengths and weaknesses.
  2. Plan practices around that knowledge.

Seems simple, right? But it’s easy to get carried away at first.

“Just do those two things, before you get to anything else,” he says. “You just have to try. But I do believe that if you go and think about everything you can do, it becomes too overwhelming to start.”

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Hudl Assist doesn’t just empower your coaching staff to take your analysis substantially deeper — it lets you do it in far less time. These reports are easy to digest. And with every stat tied directly to video, you’ll give yourself countless hours back while doubling down on details you never knew before.

Learn More | Take a Demo


Filed Under: Program Building

A Flawed Reality: When it’s Time to Reflect

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Two years after landing the head coaching position he so badly desired, Coach Jones (not his real name) was quietly fired. The administrative staff realized they’d made a mistake hiring Jones. They weren’t quite sure why he didn’t work out. They did their homework.

Well, enough to consider him a solution to their coaching needs. However, what they couldn’t see is what did him in. After spending a month analyzing Jones, here are the flaws I uncovered:

  • Is overly demanding
  • Doesn’t listen
  • Is intolerant of dissent
  • Takes the credit for success
  • Blames others for mistakes
  • Is untrustworthy—doesn’t do what he says he’ll do
  • Is aloof—seen as arrogant
  • Has a dictatorial style
  • Is abrasive

It’s fairly obvious, after the fact, that Coach Jones has some serious flaws related to interpersonal interactions (he is comfortable with a transactional style of conversation) and relationship building. Nowhere in his flaws will you find a glitch in his knowledge of the sport. He has a great command of the X’s and O’s. But he has some serious team building flaws.

The two primary blind spots that emerged are: 1) his need to be right in all situations, and 2) avoiding accountability to his players and staff. Coach Jones’ “I know” attitude produced such flaws as taking credit for success and his unwillingness to listen. The desire to avoid accountability (to the stakeholders) produced his blaming of others and his dictatorial leadership style and abrasive attitude toward relationship building created cool relationships between him and his staff and players.

The prognosis for Coach Jones is not good. If he fails to discover his fatal flaws his coaching career will never recover. As a prominent coach told me, “We’re pretty good at directing our players to change, but not so great at changing ourselves.”

Click here

to get FREE and exclusive access to 10 more top articles from Dr. Cory Dobbs!

New to the Second Edition of Coaching for Leadership!

We are pleased to announce a new chapter to the second edition of the best-selling Coaching for Leadership. The chapter, The Big Shift: Unlock Your Team’s Potential by Creating Player-Led Teambuilding, connects the previous edition of this book to its origin, as well as to the future of team sports.

The new chapter sets forth a practical and applicable agenda for change and improvement. The reader is introduced to seven vital elements of change; seven shifts of traditional mental models that lead to the new core principles necessary for creating a player-led team culture. Click here for more information about Coaching for Leadership

About Cory Dobbs, Ed.D.

Cory Dobbs is the founder of The Academy for Sport Leadership and a nationally recognized thought leader in the areas of leadership and team building.  Cory is an accomplished researcher of human experience. Cory engages in naturalistic inquiry seeking in-depth understanding of social phenomena within their natural setting.

A college basketball coach, Cory’s coaching background includes experience at the NCAA DII, NJCAA, and high school levels of competition.  After a decade of research and development Cory unleashed the groundbreaking Teamwork Intelligence program for student-athletics. Teamwork Intelligence illuminates the process of designing an elite team by using the 20 principles and concepts along with the 8 roles of a team player he’s uncovered while performing research.

Cory has worked with professional athletes, collegiate athletic programs, and high schools teaching leadership and team building as a part of the sports experience and education process.  As a consultant and trainer Dr. Dobbs has worked with Fortune 500 organizations such as American Express, Honeywell, and Avnet, as well as medium and small businesses. Dr. Dobbs taught leadership and organizational change at Northern Arizona University, Ohio University, and Grand Canyon University.


Filed Under: Program Building

Leadership Lessons from John Wooden

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Leadership Lessons from John Wooden
Dr. Cory Dobbs, The Academy for Sport Leadership

It’s Been Decades Since “Coach” was on the Sidelines but His Commitment to Character is as Relevant as it Ever Was

March is known for its madness. A time when team greatness is revealed. March is also a time when the best baseball players in the world go back to work— fine-tuning the fundamentals of their game. College basketball’s greatest coach was a tour de force for principled leadership and success. Great teams and fundamentals are of vital importance no matter what your endeavor, no matter what time of year.

Do you need proof that leadership is not about style? The legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden suggests that leadership is influence derived from one’s character. For Wooden, the ideal leader is someone whose life and character motivate people to follow. The best kind of leadership derives its capacity from the force of example, not from the power of position or personality.
Much of what passes as leadership today is nothing more than manipulation of people by sticks and carrots—threats and rewards. That’s not effective leadership for the long-term. Authentic leadership seeks to motivate people from the inside, by an appeal to the head and the heart, not by use of command and coercion. Compliance seldom, if ever, leads to authentic commitment.

Wooden influenced players through his character which he displayed in everything he did, from the way he recruited student-athletes to the way he taught them to put their socks on.

For Wooden character is the essential element necessary for great leadership.

Steve Jamison, author of best-selling books on John Wooden and Bill Walsh, has spent the past fifteen years working with Wooden on various books on leadership. He teaches Wooden’s principles to business leaders at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management.

Click here

to get FREE and exclusive access to 10 more top articles from Dr. Cory Dobbs!


“The reason he resonates with people, relate to him is as a teacher, leader, coach, he was extraordinary and as a person he was even more extraordinary. That’s a tough combination,” Jamison said.

Jamison began working with Wooden to organize and distill his wisdom for coaches and leaders in any industry. At the time he couldn’t find a publisher because most thought Wooden was no longer relevant. As one publisher told him “Coach Wooden is a little dusty on the shelf.”

Character, however, is never a quality to be shelved. Coach Wooden, as Jamison said, “Didn’t seek players who were characters. He wanted players that had character. Character was something that he felt essential to being a good performer, a good leader. Much of the problems we see today we can lay at the foot of leaders that have little character.”

When You’re Through Learning, You’re Through
Coach Wooden practiced life-long learning—as you would expect from a great teacher. Jamison, a leadership expert and educator said, “A lot of leaders get to a position with a lot of authority and power, it’s very easy to become overconfident and arrogant and think you know it all. John Wooden never made that mistake. He was very secure in what he knew but he never stopped learning. Never stopped looking for answers.”

“How willing are you to learn?” Jamison asks. “That doesn’t mean just opening a book or taking a course but how willing are you to challenge your beliefs and the way you do things, examining ways to improve. How willing are you to entertain new ideas? Whatever your level of success, self evaluation is important.”

Jamison said Coach Wooden simply asks leaders “How can you improve if you don’t have the ability to analyze yourself?” Jamison backed up this declaration from Coach Wooden by offering a story that exemplifies his commitment to self-evaluation.

“In Wooden on Leadership, Jamison explained, “ he tells the story of getting to the 1962 semi-finals of the NCAA national championships where UCLA played Cincinnati, the defending nation champs. They lost in the last seconds. On the flight back his assistant coach Jerry Norman says to him ‘coach you know we got some guys coming in next year (Goodrich/Erickson). You know, maybe we should look at bringing in the full court press.’ John Wooden knew what it was, he’d tried it his first two years at UCLA.”

“Maybe it’s time to revisit the press, said Norman.” Wooden, secure in his self, listened to his assistant. The next year UCLA pressed full-court. And the rest, as they say is history.

Wooden on Teaching: The Little Things Make the Big Things Happen
“One of the great abilities John Wooden has and had was his ability to take a complicated issue, distill it, so that, as he said, that ‘little things make big things happen,” said Jamison.
“In my view, what it was that he did to teach leadership, and it’s not complicated, he behaved like a leader. He acted like a leader. The primary teaching tool he used was his own life as an example,” Jamison commented.

Coach Wooden was a proponent of the principle that people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. According to Jamison, “John Wooden had an effusive way of letting players know he cared. His practices were ferociously intense. There wasn’t any slack in practice where you could hang out and shoot the baloney. He found time at the beginning when players were coming onto the court to take a moment, to pull someone aside as they were ambling over to the practice and ask about how things were going. ‘How’s your mother.’ ‘How’s that history class going.’ He did this to show his sincere care and concern for his players.”

 

Pyramid of Success
Coach Wooden’s primary teaching tool has been his leadership model as distilled in his Pyramid of Success. Jamison commenting on this influential model for effective living said, “His definition of success isn’t about big, it isn’t about power, fame, fortune, and prestige. For him the highest level, the highest standard of success is making that effort to become the best that you can become whether it is a coach, teacher, student, member of a team.”

Success, as Coach Wooden says, is the peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best of which you are capable.


Filed Under: Program Building

External Team Communication

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Pat Fox – Head Football Coach, Pontiac Notre Dame Prep (MI)
Coach Fox is a football coach. We believe that his message is applicable to all programs and all sports.

The following content is provided by Glazier Drive


Filed Under: Program Building

Internal Team Communication

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The following content is provided by Glazier Drive

Coach Adam Mathieson is a football coach and athletic director. We believe that his message is applicable to all programs and all sports.


Filed Under: Program Building

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