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...But if you're serious about your coaching, or building a high performance team, make bloody sure its for you.
I don't normally preach or attempt to educate in my blog posts. I'll try to either provide some level of understanding about a given subject area, or i'll dip into my own experience and from there provide recommendation about a given subject area. Im nowhere near good enough to tell anyone how to do their work.
But today i'm going to make an exception, and furthermore i'd like to pre-excuse myself if i hit a nerve with you in the next few minutes.
Ready?
Don't be late to practice. Oh, and when you do show up (on time), make bloody sure you have a plan for the practice.
You may be inexperienced. You may not have the answers to technical or tactical problems. You may have some small quirks that frustrate players. You may talk too much. You may talk too little. You may have terrible jokes or banter. Your payers will forgive you for these things.
But being late to practice or arriving unprepared speaks to your basic standards as a person. Poor standards are some of the most unattractive coaching characteristics, and assuming your team actually want high quality leadership they wont forgive you for poor standards.
My opening gambit is that kids, youth, and seniors are more intelligent than we give them credit for. If you're a highly-confident person by nature you might think you've got away with tardiness or poor punctuality. You might think you're great at thinking on your feet - 'thats how i work best' they say. You might make the traditional 'late entrance' to demonstrate your superiority that we work on your time, not the other way around.
You're fooling yourself. You either haven't got away with it, or if you have the clock is ticking. And the outcome is not an enjoyable one.
The only thing you have done is demonstrate to your team that poor standards will not only be accepted, but they will be modelled as good practice. By you. The leader.
Don't ever be late for practice and then moan about your players not giving 100% in matches. Don't ever deliver a crappy unprepared practice, and then moan that your players don't follow agreements in a match. Don't ever be late for training and attempt to sit in the meeting and convince the team that they must be disciplined, committed, coachable, motivated, and all those other great buzzwords. Don't ever deliver a crappy practice because you haven't taken 5minutes out of your week to plan it properly, and then drop a player for missing the practice or giving less than max-effort in the practice. That is some hypocrisy of the very highest order, and you created this mess.
It all comes down to standards and culture, within which, stuff like 'organisation and planning' are a fundamental demand of you from the team. The most rudimentary of coaching tasks that if done properly and consistently, can drive the culture upwards. If overlooked just once or twice, it will kill and chance of developing a brilliant team culture.
Don't be late to practice. And always have a plan.
For those of you who always have a plan, or even pride themselves on being organised and well prepared. Bravo. For those of you who, like past-tense Scott Harrington, can often be unprepared, then i have a gift for you.
I can't drive you to practice or organise your week. Sorry. But below you will find a planning template I originally created to help me ensure I arrived at every.single.practice with a plan.
The planner template is pretty self-explanatory. Here's what i suggest.
1. Start by noting the players, in their positions, that are due to attend the practice. This give you your basic starting point from which you build your practice. There is stuff you can do with the players you have attending practice. There is stuff you cant do, practically speaking. Give yourself the best chance at effectiveness at practice by using exercises, drills, games, that you know have the personnel to carry out.
2. If you plan to play any warmup or fastbreak exercises which require two teams (of equal ability, A vs B, or such), then list these teams ahead of training. You wont regret it. Imagine the reaction of players when you sort them into two ready made teams. This might not be a visible reaction, but i can guarantee you they thinking 'this is a coach with a plan'
3. Now i tend to kick off the 2nd quarter of training with some intensity - this is why i have added a fast-break section in the planner. I'm coaching an elite senior mens team, and as such i'm aware that I need them to be mentally and physically stimulated before we hit any specific tactical or match-preparation segments. I'm also less concerned with the research that says people are more concentrated and able to soak up new information in the first 10-30 minutes of training. I'm working with elite players and as such i'm demanding 90-120 highly focussed minutes of their day.
If you have a kids/junior group, this more need to be a consideration.
Anyway, what i will do it plan my fast-break segment, organise players into the right teams ahead of training, and allocate the teams when introducing the exercise. Takes less time, Im organised, and players have no reason to question whats going on.
4. Plan in the exercises, drills, and games that will make up your main segment of training. Again, ensure that the stuff you want to work on fits with the quantity and quality of personnel in the practice. If you are just 11 players at practice, don't plan a 6v6 match!
5. Finish with play. Players are naturally motivated to play real Handball, and must therefore have the opportunity to play against two goals as a good conclusion to the practice. The match might focus on testing out the new stuff you've learned during the practice, or implement the tactics/strategy you're using to prepare for match-day.
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Good luck. Oh and don't be late.
Scott