This article was written and contributed by Scott Rosberg

Today’s post comes from a comment I have heard various coaches make through the years – “I just don’t read.” As an English teacher for 18 years, reading was obviously a very big part of my job, and it was a huge part of what I was trying to get my students to do. As teachers, we expect our students to read the various assignments that we give them. No matter the subject, reading is extremely important to the success of our students.

Reading is also extremely important to my success as a teacher. Of course, I need to know what I am teaching, but I also should know a variety of material that would support or be in the realm of what I am teaching, too. It also helps to have a general knowledge of various elements in the world. Obviously, the more I know, the better prepared I can be. Reading is one of the best ways for me to prepare to be my best.

This same concept is important in athletics, as well, especially when it comes to coaches. There are a variety of ways for coaches to improve themselves. Live coaching clinics & workshops, DVD’s, online video clinics, meetings with mentor coaches, online magazines, blogs, podcasts, YouTube videos, downloadable PDF’s, newsletters, print magazines, books, eBooks, and booklets are all ways to learn more about one’s sport, coaching & athletics in general, or any other self-improvement topic that could help one become a better coach. Looking at that list, there is a wide variety of media that a coach can turn to learn more about his/her craft.

Each of those methods of learning has value, merit, and worth. I always suggest to coaches that they open themselves up to as many methods as possible to improve at their craft. Reading is one of those methods, and I would argue that it is quite possibly the most important of those methods because there are more chances to read than any other medium out there.

However, when talking with coaches about various written materials that I think they should read, I sometimes hear from them, “You know, I just don’t read all that much.” While I don’t say it, some of my first thoughts are usually, “Seriously?! Why not? Do you want to be the best you can be? What if your players said to you, ‘I just don’t ________.’ about something that you tell them they need to do to help be the best they can be?”

I realize that coaches come in all varieties, and some just aren’t as into developing themselves as much as others. Some are just helping out a team in a rec league to offer the head coach a little help, so they are not necessarily focused on getting too much information on coaching. However, I would submit that these people are prime candidates to learn a bit more on the topic of coaching and coaching their sport, so they can maximize their chances for helping the kids have a great experience.

Other coaches fall into the realm of “long-time veteran” coach. They sometimes feel they have all the knowledge they need, so there is no need for them to read more on coaching or on their sport. Well, I fall into that category of “long-time veteran” coach, and I have always read as much as I could on coaching and on my sports. There is always more to learn, and it is also enjoyable reading about something for which I have a passion.

In between the novice and the long-time veteran are the majority of coaches – coaches who have been coaching for a few years, but who still have a lot to learn. These are the coaches that are the most disappointing when I hear any of them say they “just don’t read,” as their reason for not reading certain books that could help them become better coaches. They have the most to gain and to give, so increasing their knowledge is critical to their success and their ability to help their players and teams develop.

Now, it could be that they just don’t read anything, not just coaching materials. Some people have struggled to read their whole lives or they just were never into reading, and so they just didn’t do it much. For some people, reading may be difficult, so they choose not to do it. Or they may feel they are too busy to read. However, for anyone who struggles with these situations, there are other ways to “read” materials to help them.

Audiobooks are a great way to “read” a book. You get the same information, you often get it in the writer’s voice, and you can do it while doing something else, so you don’t have to set aside extra time for it. Podcasts are another great medium to get a lot of information to help you improve. While podcasts are not exactly like audiobooks, many podcasts are basically blog posts or some other form of the written word conveyed through audio. But even for those that aren’t, there is often a lot of great information for listeners to consume that will help them improve in whatever they desire. I have been listening to podcasts for two years, and many have really helped me in my coaching and other areas of my life.

Webinars and online courses are also great formats to learn a lot of information packed into a fairly short amount of time. So are online videos. While there is not much in the way of reading in the video format, you can get a lot of information, and you can see it put into action. Video is a great way for coaches who don’t read much to still pick up a lot of great information.

No matter what method you use to “read,” make sure you do so. While I prefer actually reading a book, booklet, article, post (like this one!), etc. over most other formats, any method of consuming helpful information will give you new ideas and strategies to help you improve your coaching. Please don’t use the excuse that “I just don’t read” to limit yourself from becoming a better coach. Find some way that works for you, carve out the time necessary to do it, and then get ready for new levels of growth and development.

Then again, if you have read this far in this article, you are probably already doing those things. I guess it’s time for me to do a podcast and a video of this post for all those people that “just don’t read”!

I would love to hear your thoughts on these ideas in the Comments section below or on the Coach with Character Facebook page. My next post will focus on some different books, blogs, podcasts, etc. for you to consider “reading” this summer.

About the Author of this Article

Scott Rosberg has been a coach (basketball, soccer, & football) at the high school level for 30 years, an English teacher for 18 years, and an athletic director for 12 years. He has published seven booklets on coaching and youth/school athletics, two books of inspirational messages and quotes for graduates, and a newsletter for athletic directors and coaches. He also speaks to schools, teams, and businesses on a variety of team-building, leadership, and coaching topics. Scott has a blog and a variety of other materials about coaching and athletic topics on his website – www.coachwithcharacter.com. He can be reached by email at [email protected].

Scott is also a member of the Proactive Coaching speaking team. Proactive Coaching is dedicated to helping organizations create character and education-based team cultures, while providing a blueprint for team leadership. They help develop confident, tough-minded, fearless competitors and train coaches and leaders for excellence and significance. Proactive Coaching can be found on the web at www.proactivecoaching.info. Also, you can join the 200,000+ people who have “Liked” Proactive Coaching’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/proactivecoach. Scott can also be reached through Proactive Coaching at [email protected]

This article was written and contributed by Scott Rosberg

At Wal-Marts, Targets, JC Penneys, and just about every other department store out there, the signs are plastered all over the place – BACK TO SCHOOL! While those three words conjure up all kinds of feelings for just about everybody who reads them, one thing they always indicate is that summer is coming to an end. The hope and promise of summer that we all had as Memorial Day hit (which seems like about three weeks ago!) faded quickly, as within no time we were watching the parades and fireworks on the 4th of July. And now the “Back to School” signs are telling us that it’s over. The never-ending sunshine, warm days, barbecuing, sleeping in (for students and many of you), the feeling that nothing is as urgent as it is during the school year, and overall feeling of freedom and laziness are about to be gone for another 9 months.

Don’t Wait For the Future – Create It

And yet, along with those signs are some other signs – signs of anxiousness, excitement, possibility, and hope. While the end of summer is just that – an end – it is also a beginning, the start of something new. Many people wonder, “What will this school year bring?” Well, here’s a thought for you – don’t focus on what the year might bring to you.

Go get whatever you want from the school year.

The concept that something or someone is going to bring me something is very passive. It means that I am waiting for whatever is going to happen to happen. While there is nothing wrong with hoping for certain things to come our way, it is much better to go after the things that we seek in life. This is an active mentality, a mentality that says, “I am going to create my future, not wait for my future to come to me.”

For coaches & advisors (as well as your athletes, and activities participants), it is imperative that you work to create your future. If you sit around and wait and see what happens, the success you seek will never come. In fact, many of you don’t take the summer off the way that others do. The best coaches, advisors, teachers, athletes, musicians, actors, etc. put in a lot of time and effort throughout the summer to work on their crafts. Many worked on their skills, read books, watched videos, strengthened their bodies, went to camps, and played in tournaments trying to improve themselves. They understood that the off-season is a great chance to impact their future by doing something in the present.

To those of you that put in the time to your professional development and your team’s skill development, strength training, and team-building, “Thank you.” You have demonstrated a commitment that is necessary for any team to develop to its potential.  The more of you and your team members who did so, the better the chances are that your teams will have the kind of success you are all seeking.

Commit to Be Your Best to Help Your Kids Be Their Best

For those of you who weren’t able to work as much as you would have liked to on your or your team’s development, now is the time to rev it up and kick things into high gear. While you can’t go back into the past and re-do your summer, you can do all that you are capable of now.  It’s not too late to get “caught up” on your own professional development, so that you are ready to move your teams forward in the direction you want to go, and to develop yourself and your teams to your potential.

The start of school is a great time to commit to your & your team’s future. Don’t wait for your future to come to you. Decide what you want your future to be and go get it. Determine what culture you want to create for and with your teams, and then do all you can to develop that culture. Attack this new school year with a sense of purpose, desire, and focus, and don’t let anyone or anything knock you off track. Create great habits that will help you focus and allow you to reap the benefits of your efforts and help you overcome the inevitable dips in motivation and excitement that will hit after the first few weeks back. Anything is possible this year if you focus your effort and attention, and you then act on that focus.

Before you know it, we will be in full swing with our fall sports and activities practices and competitions, and school will be back in session. Enjoy the last bit of summer that you have left, but make sure that while you are doing that, you are also preparing yourself for your seasons by taking care of last-minute duties and responsibilities. That way when it all starts up for you, you will be ready to go full-speed ahead.  Have a great end of your summer and a fantastic start to your new school year!

For those of you who receive my AD Newsletter and Coaches’ Newsletter to send to your coaches and parents, you saw this post a couple weeks ago in your Coaches’ Newsletter. For those of you athletic directors out there who would like to receive those two newsletters to send out to your people, email me at [email protected] and let me know you are interested in those. Around the 15th of each month, I will email you the following month’s newsletters, so you can tweak them for your specific audiences and send them out with your school’s newsletter at the beginning of the month.

About the Author of this Article

Scott Rosberg has been a coach (basketball, soccer, & football) at the high school level for 30 years, an English teacher for 18 years, and an athletic director for 12 years. He has published seven booklets on coaching and youth/school athletics, two books of inspirational messages and quotes for graduates, and a newsletter for athletic directors and coaches. He also speaks to schools, teams, and businesses on a variety of team-building, leadership, and coaching topics. Scott has a blog and a variety of other materials about coaching and athletic topics on his website – www.coachwithcharacter.com. He can be reached by email at [email protected].

Scott is also a member of the Proactive Coaching speaking team. Proactive Coaching is dedicated to helping organizations create character and education-based team cultures, while providing a blueprint for team leadership. They help develop confident, tough-minded, fearless competitors and train coaches and leaders for excellence and significance. Proactive Coaching can be found on the web at www.proactivecoaching.info. Also, you can join the 200,000+ people who have “Liked” Proactive Coaching’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/proactivecoach. Scott can also be reached through Proactive Coaching at [email protected]

The article was provided by Coaches Network

By Bill Cole, MS, MA

What makes for an excellent coach? What personal qualities do top coaches possess that separate them from the good coach? Is it more the training or the inner qualities? Is it more coaching technique or the artistry? Is it more coaching knowledge or its application? Is it more natural talent for helping people or cultivated abilities? Is it insightful analysis of people or an abiding presence with them?

There probably is no one single attribute that all excellent coaches possess. Top-flight coaches can be comprised of many stripes and can come from many places, but they all connect with their charges, they know how to make changes with their players and they know how to get results. Bottom line, they get the work done.

This is my own personal list of what I like to see in coaches. Over my 15 years as a college educator I trained many, many future teachers and coaches. I was master teacher to many of them. I mentor many coaches on a private basis now. Probably the major qualities I saw that distinguished the great from the very good were these three:

• They cared deeply about people.

• They had incredibly high personal standards and ambitions.

• They had a high level of self-knowledge.

Those three are at least a wonderful starting point. Now on to the other 15 attributes of top-notch coaches. Top coaches possess many of these:

• Exquisite self awareness.

• High emotional intelligence.

• Broad vision with focus on important details.

• Nuanced, crisp, superb communication.

• Highest regard, caring and respect for clients.

• Creative, innovative learner and developer of custom coaching methodologies.

• Perceptive, intuitive, curious and inquiring.

• Quick study with capacity for deep and wide learning.

• Student of coaching and other disciplines that support helping others.

• Sincere interest in clients and desire to help.

• Continuous learner of themselves and their experiences.

• See coaching as a two way interchange of energies and learnings.

• Humble, open, nurturing and grateful to the world.

• View coaching as a calling, an art and a discipline.

• Walking the talk and modeling a good life for their clients.

Expert coaches work on themselves unceasingly. They are open to new ideas and philosophies. They study coaching seriously and take coaching seriously. They care about the person across from them.

That’s what it’s all about anyhow, isn’t it? Helping people?

by Stephanie Zonars, LifeBeyondSport

Most of us have a boss.

Someone that has a lot of say as to our professional fate.

For head coaches overwhelmed with the demands of running a program, investing time in building a better relationship with their athletic director—often called “managing up”— can seem daunting.

Many coaches don’t feel heard by administration and don’t believe that their administrator is in it to help them.

I recently attended a panel discussion that addressed the challenges both coaches and athletic directors face in creating a stronger relationship.

The panel included:

• China Jude (Assistant VP/Athletics—Queens College)
• Elizabeth Naumovski (Head Women’s Basketball Coach—Queens College)
• Lindy Roberts-Ivy (Senior Associate AD/SWA— Oklahoma)
• Sherri Coale (Head Women’s Basketball Coach—Oklahoma) and
• Patti Phillips of NACWAA as the moderator.

The discussion offered some helpful ideas for coaches to develop a stronger connection with their boss.

8 Tips for A Better Relationship With Your Boss

1. Ask for two formal meetings a year (certainly you will meet more than this, but these two are the bare minimum)

• The first is to set expectations and mutually agreed upon objectives. This can help administrators take away obstacles in order for the coach to achieve his/her goals.
• The second is a mid-year review to check in on progress.

2. Attend other sporting events and take the opportunity to engage in conversation with your AD there.

This is a good way to address things that come up in a less formal way that doesn’t require setting up a meeting.

3. Be proactive and talk about things as they come up, not just at annual meetings.

Nothing should be brought up in an annual review that hadn’t been discussed earlier in the year. [Tweet That!]

4. Invite your administrator to practice.

And keep inviting them if they say no!

5. Ask for what you need, not just what you want.

6. Add value on campus.

Get involved by serving on committees, scooping ice cream, tasting chili, etc. How can you enrich the culture?

7. Be consistent in communication.

Talk about the great things happening with your team and make sure that he/she hears anything negative from you before getting a phone call about it.

8. Take the initiative to understand the climate/culture on campus.

Stay informed about campus happenings through whatever means available (daily or weekly emails, social media, etc).

A little proactivity and effort can go a long way when it comes to building a strong relationship with your boss. What would you add to this list?

8 Tips to a Better Relationship With Your Boss appeared first on Life Beyond Sport.

About Stephanie Zonars

Stephanie Zonars helps coaches build and maintain winning team cultures through her business, Life Beyond Sport. Teams at Penn State, Notre Dame, West Point and over 60 other schools have built stronger trust, communication and teamwork through her workshops. Stephanie spent three years on staff with the Penn State women’s basketball team, assisting the team to back-to-back Big Ten Championships. She’s also the author of three books. For more tips on leadership and team culture, visit LifeBeyondSport

This are article was provided by Coaches Network

Dr. David Hoch, CMAA, CIC

In the local newspaper, a coach was quoted as saying, “We didn’t bring our A game today. It wasn’t a very good effort.” That may be a very honest statement, but it might not be how you want to present yourself to the public.

A coach is responsible for preparing a team to play. This comment, therefore, simply points out that the coach did not do his or her part.

Another common quote from a coach is, “The kids have to learn how to win tough games.” Again, this is the coach’s responsibility–learning to win is part of the equation.

It’s okay to be disappointed after a game. But it’s not okay to say things to the media that put the blame for a loss on the athletes instead of yourself as coach.

The following suggestions should help you to avoid miscues when dealing with the media.

1. Take five minutes to compose yourself after a game. You may be frustrated and angry, or just exhausted. Be aware that these emotions may exist and resist the impulse to vent to the media. As the spokesperson for not only the team, but also the athletic department and school, you need to measure your post-game comments.

2. Never degrade or say anything negative about your opponent. Even if your team made mistakes that contributed to the loss, always give credit for the win to the other team. You can be a little more direct and dissect the team’s performance during the next practice session, but not in the media where everyone can see or hear it.

3. Complaining about or blaming officials is never acceptable. No missed or poor call, even late in a game, ever causes a team to win or lose. Any negative statements concerning the referees will always come across as sour grapes and demonstrate a lack of class.

4. Think about how your remarks will be viewed. Most individuals react better to positive comments as opposed to criticism. Being critical and throwing your players under the bus is not a good method for motivating your team.

5. Remember that negative and controversial comments sell. Don’t fall prey to questions from reporters that could inflame an issue or create a problem. You can always refuse comment on any subject. One last hint is to refrain from referring to your group of athletes as “my” team. A team is a collection of many individuals. Therefore, it should always be “our” team. In education-based athletics, the focus has to be on the growth and development of young people. Therefore, the proper designation of “our” team and serving as a positive spokesperson for the team, department, and school is important.

David Hoch retired in 2010 after a 41-year career as a high school athletic director and coach. In 2009, Dr. Hoch was honored as the Eastern District Athletic Director of the Year by the Nastional Association for Sport and Physical Education. He was also presented with the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association Distinguished Service Award, and in 2000 he was named the Maryland State Athletic Director Association’s Athletic Director of the Year. Dr. Hoch has authored over 460 professional articles and made more than 70 presentations around the country.