Post-Season Coaching Essentials to Maximize Your Offseason, Part 2
Effectively closing the season takes organization, time, and commitment from both the coaches and the athletes. As we examined last week, the first step in this process is having a post-season team meeting with your entire team and staff. After meeting as a team, the next step in this process is to meet with each individual player and staff member. This article will lay out the framework for conducting individual meetings that will provide direction during the off-season, motivate your players/staff to improve, inspire them to reach their goals and enhance the culture of your program.
Keep in mind that you should use these meetings for positive planning. This is not the time to dwell on the negative or demean your players or staff. This should be a time to meet the needs of each of your players and agree upon goals that you both find attractive. Reminder, when setting goals with your athletes use the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely) approach. There are tons of resources and literature available that talk about goal setting, but I have not found any more valuable than sticking to these core principles when discussing goals with my athletes or staff.
The following is a guideline for conducting your off-season individual meetings.
- Season Assessment: Get the players thoughts on how the season went from their perspective. Ask them questions such as:
- Did the team meet expectations?
- What goals did the team reach? What goals did the team fail to reach?
- What are the goals for next season?
- Player Assessment: Having the athletes self-reflect on their individual contribution to the team is a way to gauge how they see their role within the program. During this portion of the meeting, have each player fill out an assessment on their abilities as a player. Include: ball handling, passing, shooting, shooting on the move, finishing, post moves, individual defense, team defense, rebounding, strength, athleticism and commitment to the team. You may be surprised on what each athlete thinks of themselves.
- Off-Season Plan: What are you going to do to improve your game this off-season? Establishing individual goals needs to take place at this time. Athletes respond better to goals that they have ownership in, so let them take the personal responsibility of identifying SMART goals for the off-season. Make sure these are well documented with copies for both the player and coach.
- Team Expectations for Next Season: As the coach you see the team in a different light then the players on the team. Players should have clear direction heading into the off-season on what the expectations of the team are for next season.
Individual meetings with your players should be a learning experience for both parties involved. Athletes should get to know their coaches’ expectations of them and the team, while building rapport with them. Coaches and athletes should leave these meetings with a better understanding of each other, and of what needs to be done to reach their individual and team goals.
Staff meetings also need to take place on an individual basis. Similar to your meetings with your players you need to focus on season assessment, coach assessment, an off-season plan for improvement and team expectations for next season. The evaluation should be designed to serve three main purposes:
- Enhance job performance
- Encourage professional growth
- Improve program quality
Enhance job performance: Similar to evaluating a player on your team, you need to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each of your staff members. Developing your assistants to maximize their efforts to your program or ultimately helping them obtain head coaching jobs themselves should be the underlying goal you have as the leader of your program. Provide positive and negative feedback that will assist in the individual development of each staff member.
Encourage professional growth: Two of the best ways to grow as a professional are by attending clinics and working camps during the summer months. As a head coach you have to ask yourself, “Am I providing these opportunities for my staff?†Motivate your coaches to develop their coaching skills during the off-season by getting out of their comfort zone and learning. Self-education is one of the biggest development tools and often the most neglected.
Improve program quality: Enhancing the athletic experience for your athletes should be the ultimate goal of an athletic team. The only way you can improve the program is by improving the individuals involved with it with a primary emphasis on the teachers (i.e. the coaching staff).
Providing closure to a season takes continued communication and cooperation between the coaches and players. All the returning players have dreams about where they want to be next season. Having individual meetings with each member of your team gives them direction towards those dreams. As Anthony Robbins said, “The way we communicate with others and with ourselves ultimately determines the quality of our lives.†Communicate with your team, individual players and staff members this off-season to ultimately improve the quality of your program.
Moving Forward,
Brad Schmit