Individual Training and Development

This week has professionally been very exciting for me.  I have worked as a high school football coach for the last 11 years.  I have coached offensive line and had great success with 2 state championships, 15 division 1 lineman, 2 NFL lineman, and (most importantly) 76 offensive linemen who have graduated with honors during their high school career.  While I have had great success as a position coach, I have not had the opportunity for advancement, until this week.  This week, I was named the offensive coordinator for the program that I love so much.  This is a huge deal for me, and one that I have to concentrate on improving my staff and myself so that we can maintain our excellent standards. 

This is where having specific courses of development is going to be very important.  I have outlined the four specific kinds of development that I would like to see implemented in our program for my development and the development of the rest of the staff. 

1.     Mentoring

“A mentor is an experienced, productive senior employee who helps develop a less experienced employee” (Noe, 2010, p. 371).  In coaching, there are often very stable members of coaching staffs, and then very new members.  Often there is a high percentage of burnout because the job is very stressful, the hours are horrendous, and there is very little, (and sometimes no) compensation.  Developing a system where veteran coaches are helping younger coaches both with the x’s and o’s of football and with how to handle and assimilate to the life of a football coach is imperative. 

This also could be a very reciprocal relationship because often-newer coaches have an enthusiasm that may have worn off of veteran coaches and that can be contagious.  I have also found that newer coaches have great ways to teach and connect with kids, and we can always use more of that in high school football. 

2.     Job Rotation

Job rotation  “involves providing employees with a series of job assignments in various functional areas” (Noe, 2010, p. 367).  During my tenure as a coach, I have only coached 1 varsity position: offensive line.  While many people, (myself included) would argue that this is probably the most difficult position to coach, I am not sure that I have done a service to myself or to my players by being stagnant.  Yes, I have incorporated new ideas and trainings into my coaching, but I have not had to learn a new position that would require me to have to think differently about every aspect of the game. 

Implementing job rotation on a coaching staff would mean that every few years a different coach takes over a new position.  This would allow fresh ideas to come into these positions, and for every coach to have a greater empathy and understanding about what it takes to coach and play each position. 

3.     Feedback models

The feedback when you are a high school football coach is pretty simple:  did you win?  But, there is so much more that goes into coaching than the actual outcome of the game.  How are practices organized?  Are you putting your best personnel on the field?  Are you creating schemes and adjustments that are correct and fit your personnel?  Is your offense moving the ball?  Is your defense stopping the ball?  These are just a few of the questions that make up a quality evaluation.

Using a model, such as a 360-degree feedback model takes feedback from “peers, customers, bosses and themselves” (Noe, 2010, p. 361).  Getting this feedback, both personally and as a staff would allow us to see what our necessary next steps are and what we need to do in order to create the best possible environment for our players. 

4.     Formal Education

For staffs such as mine that have been together for a long time, we can have the tendency to get passive and complacent in our thinking.  This is why it is necessary to have formal education every year.  There are a plethora of clinics for football coaches that will help sharpen our skills and introduce new ways of approaching practice, strength and conditioning and game planning.  The added bonus of technology means that we can access these clinics through the forms of webinars from our own homes, or from our team rooms where we can participate as a staff and break down exactly what this means for our staff.

Reference:

Noe, R. A. (2010). Employee training and development (5th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.