Lessons from a Little Green Guy, Part 1

There are really very few barriers to beginning your volunteer coaching career. Yes, it does help to know a little about the sport you're coaching... But even more important than that, you'll need tons of patience. There are hundreds of websites which can explain the rules, strategy, and give coaching tips and techniques for any sport - you're on one right now. But, I'm not aware of anyplace where you can get more patience, or learn patience. Trust me, it will either be there or not when you run that first practice, or step on to the field for the first game.

This is where the "Little Green Guy" comes in. To be an effective youth coach, you must tap your inner Jedi. As a huge Star Wars fan, I can quote many lines - the best of which come from Yoda, the 900 year old Jedi Master. To harness the power of the Force, a young Jedi must learn control and have patience. In this case, you will not be fighting Darth Vader (probably), but frankly there's nothing you can do about it if a 5 year-old isn't interested in a dribbling or agility drill. The best plan for these situations is to be flexible. For practices, always have more planned than you can do in case you need to switch things up. For games, make a substitution or call a quick time out. Redirection works well, as does moving quickly through practice and drills to avoid downtime.

Along with patience comes that control mentioned above. This means being in control of both yourself and the kids. I always start each season with a few rules - when the coach talks, no one else does, and there's no fiddling with equipment either. If either happens, I stop, look, and wait. If it takes more than a few seconds, saying the child's name usually gets things moving.

All of this sounds great, right? Then you find out that practice is tonight after a horrible day at work. You're hungry, it's hot out, and that little kid who's always screwing around starts yanking other kids' flags off and flinging the flags as far as he can... Assuming you're dealing with youngsters who are just beginning their sports careers, gather your thoughts and redirect to a different drill - or even suggest a quick break.

By age 8 or 9, your options increase. They are now old enough to "run lines" until behavior improves :) But until then, when coaching gets more serious, have some ideas to keep things moving along without stressing you out. ..."anger, fear, aggression... the Dark Side are they..."

May the Force Be With You.