Tips for Coaches

For all of the coaches out there, I have new respect for you. Coaching is one of the toughest jobs out there. You work hard to have someone else reap the benefits, and when you athletes cry, you cry with them. When they succeed, you rejoice with them. Not to mention that the last two meets I have coached are outside in 110 degree heat and record humidity. I am new at coaching, and have only coached three meets (keep in mind also that I am not the head coach, there are two others for this team). From the meets that I have attended, I have one key word: ORGANIZATION. My team is composed of about 50 kids, mostly under age 10, who have pretty much never swam competitively in their lives. They have no idea what heats are, how to read meet sheets, and how meet warm-ups work. Kids need structure in order to function. We need to really have more time before the meet (NOT THE DAY OF) to explain some of these crucial tid-bits with them. Another thing that I found to be helpful is staging. Many people know what this is, but I did not. For younger, more inexperienced teams, it is helpful to have them sit on a bench with lane assignments on it. I made a makeshift one out of electrical tape and bleachers. I saw a nice one that had spray painted numbers on it. Assign someone the task of benching the heats. This will make it a lot easier on you as the coach so that you can focus on scrambling around and trying to get your kids who are busy wrestling and seeing who can hold their breath the longest without passing out in the warm up lanes, rather than having to explain to them how to line up for their events. Lastly, it is important to keep the parents as organized and informed as possible. Make sure they know how to read a psych sheet. Maybe when they are dropping their kids off for practice the day before, bring an example sheet and show them how events and heats work. If you are coaching a meet anytime soon, best of luck to you. Hope you all enjoyed. If you have comments or questions feel free to ask!