Coaching is above all teaching. The greatest coaches are the greatest teachers. The most important aspect of a play is how you teach it. There are no magic bullets; it’s all about breaking a play down to the individual techniques used in a specific play & teaching the players those techniques until they are mastered. The following are some ideas I picked up along the way.
1. Preparation
- Know your subject matter
2. Organization of Presentation
- Have an organized manner of presenting your material
- Whole – Part – Whole method
- Teach concepts and the reason why
3. Variety of Presentation
- Use multiple venues of presenting material
- Video
- Chalk
- Playbook
- Walk through
- Individual drills
- Partner drills
- Group drills
- Team
- Make the field your chalk board
4. Break down Skills into Drills
- Have a drill progression for teaching each individual technique
- Reps at game speed
5. Adhere to the Laws of Detail
- Teach in small steps as well as the big picture
6. Encourage and Correct
- Use video tape
- Teach with enthusiasm
7. Review and Repetition
- Reps are greatest teacher if done with awareness
- Review with enthusiasm
- Never let reps become boring
- Use variety in review
- Reps lead to intuitive performance and mastery
- GAME SPEED IS A MUST
- Two speeds: Teach specialized techniques & game speed
- Players must know the difference
- Players learn more by doing that by listening