Episode 16-Practice? You're talking practice?

In this podcast episode, Coach Rick discusses the importance of practice in sports coaching. He acknowledges the abundance of resources available for coaches to find practice sessions, but recognizes the value of sharing his own knowledge and experiences. He emphasizes the importance of keeping practice sessions simple, fun, and age-appropriate. He provides examples of practice drills for different age groups in soccer, baseball, and basketball. In high school track and field, he suggests longer practice sessions at the beginning of the season and the involvement of team captains and team managers to assist with coaching in specialized events. He concludes by emphasizing the rewards of coaching and seeing athletes progress over time. Hey there, coaches! Welcome back to the podcast, Gotcha Coach, a podcast for coaches, about coaches, and hosted by a real coach. That would be me, Coach Rick, your host, and welcome to episode 16, entitled, Practice? You're talking about practice? Now this is a parody on the infamous statement by the NFL's Indianapolis Colts head coach, Jim Mora, in 2001, when he answered a question at a press conference by saying, Playoffs? You're talking about playoffs? But it could also relate to Allen Iverson, former NBA All-Star, who in 2002 responded to a reporter with his famous, We're talking about practice, not the game that I die for. Now, I've been asked to have an episode devoted to setting up and conducting a practice session. So against my beliefs, I'll kind of do this. You see, I'm not a fan of sending out my practice sessions into the universe for all to see. Why? Well, it's pretty simple. There are so many, many places that a potential or existing coach can go to to find workouts and practice sessions that it seems almost counterproductive to add to the multitude and muddy the waters. However, I find myself thinking that when I got started in coaching, I didn't have this plethora of knowledge at my fingertips. So why not? I mean, I've said it before in earlier episodes that practice is like being in the classroom at school. The athlete is learning every day at practice like the student learns in the classroom. And then the athlete goes on to the track, the basketball court, or the soccer pitch, and takes their test, which shows what they've learned in practice. So practice is very important, despite what Mr. Iverson said. Many of the youth sports that have coaches out there, such as AYSO Soccer and Little League Baseball, are more simple than high school sports because of, in my opinion, one simple thing. Winning isn't everything. Phew! There, I said it. But wait, is that really true and accurate? In whose mind is it not important? I mean, just because the mantra of both organizations is that this is a youth sport where friendly, equal competition is the goal, and the emphasis on winning is not a major goal at all, is, in my opinion, all for naught when the teams with the best winning record are awarded with trophies and acclaim, while others are either given a quote-unquote participation award or nothing at all. That being said, these coaches can approach their practice sessions in multiple ways. The most important thing to remember is to keep it simple, keep it fun, and keep it age-appropriate. Depending on the age group that you are coaching, work on game-related skills that your group will understand and be able to perform. Maybe not right away, but eventually. Remember, you're the teacher. You're teaching them lessons that they will learn so that they can pass the test later. As the age group increases, so should the content and magnitude of your instruction. Here's some examples. Six- to nine-year-olds in AYSO should have practice times limited to, say, 45 to 60 minutes and should be learning how to properly kick the ball, that the only time a player other than the keeper can use their hands is on a throw-in, how to properly execute a throw-in, and as they get to eight and nine, what positions are, and what is expected of each position, and how to mark an opponent. Now, here's a special note. Please note that I said keeper and not goalie. A goalie is a position in ice hockey. In soccer, that position is called a keeper or goalkeeper. Please, that irritates me when people call him a goalie, but I digress. So, let's get back on subject. Little league players at the same age should be taught the very basics of how to hold the baseball, the proper way to throw the baseball, and how not to be afraid of the baseball when trying to catch it. Also, what each position is and where to quote-unquote stand when you're told to go to that position, how to hold and swing it back, and where to run when you do hit it, and where to throw the ball if it's hit to you in the field. Note, I like to just have all my infielders throw to first base as six and seven-year-olds, no matter what the situation was. It's simpler that way. Again, eight and nine-year-olds should already know these things if they started out as six-year-olds, and then you can begin to work on quote-unquote situations like double plays, four sounds, and where your outfielder should throw the ball. No longer should you have to make all of your infielders throw at the first base. As I said earlier, as your group ages, increase the amount of time that you have them at practice and increase the amount of subject matter to be taught, just like in the classroom. But, and this is a very big but, with a capital B as a matter of fact, don't give them information overload and don't skimp on the amount of time spent on your practice topic in order to get more things into your session. Also, once you are quote in season and playing games against each other, keep your practices to one night a week. Remember, these are school-age kids who have homework and family time, so please, and I say this again, please don't make them eat, sleep, and breathe the sport that you are coaching. Now, let's move on to middle school basketball. This age group can be squirrely at best, at least as far as middle school boys go. Many of these boys are going through growth spurts or they haven't started yet. Many are experiencing their first taste of having to quote-unquote try out for a school sport. And then there's having to be academically eligible. And the biggest issue of them all, middle school girls. I would set up my practices in the following manner. First, 25 free throws before practice ever starts. Then the weave drill. Then one-on-one dribble drill for the length of the court. Then a full court layup drill. Then full court jump shot drill. Then go into your daily objective, whatever it may be. Then do a full court scrimmage working on the daily objective. Then again, 25 free throws at the end of practice and then run lines. Now, the daily objective is what I determined to be the item that we needed to work on that day. Sometimes it was something that I noticed that we weren't doing in a game or something that we needed to improve on. And sometimes it was something new that we were just introducing, like, oh, say a full court press or a half court trap as examples. During the scrimmage, we even may throw in some variables, like you have to make three passes before a shot or you have to set three screens before you take a shot. This helps to reinforce the lesson or the objective that we worked on earlier in the day at practice, or even something that we worked on in a previous practice session. Okay, now let's get into my favorite sport to coach. High school track and field. Please don't get me wrong. There are so many, many challenges in coaching at the high school level. And those challenges can consume you and make you crazy. But the rewards of viewing an athlete progress after having them in the program for four years and seeing them graduate, move on to college and in life is such a rewarding experience and is what brought me back year after year. I used to establish right from the start that our practice sessions would be at least 90 minutes in the beginning of the season and then would drop off proportionately as we got further into the season. This allowed parents to plan when they had to pick up their non-driving athletes from practice throughout the season. Longer practices in the beginning of the season reflect the amount of teaching and work that needs to be accomplished. Now, there are multiple ways that you as a head coach can set up your practices depending on the amount of assistant coaches that you have or don't have. If you don't have assistance for each specialty event, distance, throws, jumps, hurdles, then you should or might consider this scenario. Get some assistance! No, really, I know how hard it is in some places to be able to do this. So you have to be creative. First, you as the head coach have to have, and this is very important, knowledge of training principles for the events that you don't have an assistant. This can be tough, but not impossible. Here's a couple of ideas that have worked for me. First, trust your athletes. They want to succeed, and they don't worry if they don't have a coach overseeing them five days a week. Empower them. As we've talked about before, select team captains in each of these specialty areas. These captains are usually junior or senior athletes that have displayed extraordinary leadership qualities and that you feel can control the small group of athletes that comprise that group. Believe me, it's a fine line that you are walking and is not exactly the best way to grow a team, but it's an amazing way that your leaders will grow and that those that they lead will grow as well. Now, outside of the everyday warm-up and cool-down routine, establish a routine of having a team running workout day on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday during the early non-competitive season. Now, this will exclude throwers and the distance crew, which will have different running workouts on those days. Hopefully, you have a throws coach, but if you don't, and I don't repeat don't support leaving your throwers with only a captain to oversee them, then you as a head coach need to have your head on a huge swivel to be able to watch multiple areas during the practice session. Here's something that's worked for me for many, many years. Team managers. Now, what's a team manager? It's a non-track athlete or an injured athlete that wishes to be a part of the team, but not a competitor. These managers can be used to time your running workouts while you're working with the throws group or any other group, depending on the need. Now, if you establish a Monday, Wednesday, Friday running schedule, then Tuesdays and Thursdays are used for quote-unquote individual event days. Long jump, triple jump, high jump, hurdles, pole vault, relays, and block starts. This is where it gets really scary. First off, in my professional opinion, you do not capitalize, do not offer the pole vault in your program unless you have a qualified assistant coach to coach that event. It's way too dangerous. Now, I've tried having a coach split their time between throws and the vault, and it was not the way that I wanted to really run that program. In the words of Bon Jovi, we were living on a prayer that nobody killed themselves in either area when the coach was at the other one. If you are blessed enough to have enough coaches for every event, you can adjust your practice schedule to allow your athletes and their individual coaches to meet every practice and get some work in. This will work if your assistant coaches understand that during a 90 minute practice that they will have their own athletes for say 30 to 45 minutes every day and to plan their work accordingly. In addition, your multi-event athletes need to understand that it is their responsibility to plan their time so that they attend their appointed time with their individual coach and not ignore their individual events. It is extremely important for the athlete to understand the idea of communication with their individual coach is their responsibility, and failure to do this will result in their not being entered in their individual event at the next meet. As a head coach responsible for sprints, relays, hurdles, and jumps as I was, I would follow a training philosophy of many reps early in the training period and gradually reducing the amount of work as we got closer to the league championships. Quantity first, quality last is not a new thing and has been an accepted training process for decades. But what I did and how I went about it is not something that I've heard from other coaches. First, I considered sprinters, hurdlers, and jumpers as part of the quote-unquote sprint group and they would be expected to take part in the Monday, Wednesday, Friday running workouts. I would devise my workouts based on the times run at the previous year's league championship meet in the 200 and 400 and adjust the times to be run in each workout according to those goals, assuming that my athletes wanted to rise to those championship times. Here's what I mean. I would start the season out with my group doing their running work at what I refer to as 55 percent of maximum time. So, for boys who were aiming at running a 22 second 200, the winning lead time from the previous year, we'd start them out by running repeat 200s in 31 seconds or 55 percent of maximum effort. We'd stay at 55 percent on all the distances no matter what we were running for two to three weeks and then move to 65 percent of maximum and 75 percent of maximum and so forth throughout the season until we got to the current season's league championship. Here's an example. We'd run two sets of four by 200 meters at 55 percent of maximum with a 200 meter quote-unquote zombie jog back to the start and a five minute break between sets. Now, you're probably wondering what in the world is a zombie jog? Well, a zombie jog is faster than an all-out walk but not a real jog. This is just to keep them moving at a speed that's better than a walk but isn't going to tax them too much. As we approached, say, two weeks before the championship, this workout would look more like two sets of two times 200 at 90 to 95 percent of max with a full walk to the start and a seven minute break between sets. Another kind of unique thing that I did was I split the group into three subgroups based on experience and the strength of the runners that I had. Here's what I did. While at Lincoln High School, we were the fighting zebras and our school colors were blue and gold. So, I named the groups blue for the more experienced and faster runners, gold for the next step down of runners, and zebra which was for the beginners or less experienced and lesser quality runners and would adjust their goal times accordingly. This would assure that a newcomer or a freshman wasn't being held to the same standard as an experienced senior runner. Athletes were encouraged to strive to be moved up to the next group as the season progressed, either by me based on what they did or if they felt that they were ready to make the move upwards. Coaching is hard work. It really is. And I'm not trying to blow smoke up your shorts or sell you on it not being hard. But these are just some ideas that have worked for me over the years and nowadays, there are plenty of places online that you can do the research yourself and find different programs that work in different parts of the country, depending on the length of the season and even the weather conditions in those areas. And I encourage you to take it upon yourself to look into this and do your due diligence as a coach. I hope that you're enjoying the podcast and may even be learning something from it and that this may help you in your coaching journey. And if you are enjoying the podcast, please tell your friends that they can listen to it on Spotify, Google, Amazon, iHeartRadio, Buzzsprout and other places as well. And they can join the listeners from Japan, Australia, Singapore, Canada, Moscow and 43 cities from around the USA. You can still send me your thoughts, episode ideas or questions to CoachRickB53 at gmail.com. Until next time, take care, be safe, laugh a lot and tell someone that you love them. I'll talk to you soon.