Coaching Made Easier

What It’s All About…..

One of the fantastic side benefits of your days as a coach is the relationships that are established in two ways.  First and most important is your impact on the lives of your players.  Like it or not, you ARE a role model for these young men – they look up to you and watch your every move.  I used to have parents that would come to me on the sly and ask if I could “encourage” little Johnny to do this or that.  It seems that he would listen to me more so than his mom or dad.  They also pay close attention to your “discussions” with umpires.  Be aware of the little eyes that are watching you (see my December 2008 post).

In addition to the relationships that are established with your players you will also find that great friends are made with the parents of your players.  My wife and I still socialize with several couples that we met at the ball field over the years.

These relationships became evident recently when I had an opportunity to do a book signing at a local Barnes & Nobles.  The place was packed with parents and former players lined up to have me sign a copy of their book.    One dad told me that his son had cancelled a rather important date to be at my signing.  Others drove home for the weekend from their colleges.  It was extremely gratifying to see them and reminisce about the good ole days of the “Birds”.

Be aware of the impact you are having on young lives and be cognizant of the fact that you are possibly making some life-long friends with their parents.  Treasure the experience – it goes by quickly.

Communication is King

In Chapter 6 of my book, Coaching Made Easier, titled “Parents -How to Keep Them on Your Side and Out of Your Hair” I spend a great deal of time on the art of communicating to the parents of your players.  As in any endeavor, proper communication is key to a smooth running organization.  This is true in the corporate board room and on the ball field.  Just as a well oiled team of executives has to be on the same page so does your team.  Everyone has different ways that they like to be communicated with so this chapter takes you through a variety of different ways.  Finding which ways works best for your particular group of parents may take some trial and error.

The various options discussed in my book are:

• Telephone
• Handouts
• Email
• Web Site

 

Each of these methods are presented in detail in this chapter but the bottom line is that you can’t over communicate.  Despite my anal attention to detail and communication, and despite disseminating information in all of the above methods, I would inevitably have little Johnny’s mother come up to me, look me square in the eye and tell me that she didn’t know the practice time had been changed.  Don’t ever expect to have parents get the message by communicating it one time – they are not dense, they simply have too much information coming their way.

Since my book was written there have been a couple of other methods that have come onto the scene.  I want to thank my good friend and fellow coach, Bob Starnes for contributing these ideas to me.  There a web solution to assist you with your communication chores.  This offers an easy to use communication method for any group: church, civic, sports teams or whatever.  You can tour the site and learn more about it at:  http://www.callingpost.com/default.asp .  Basically, you set up every parents’ cell or home number in the on line calling post.  You then have an 800 number as a coach you call to give the message (usually 30 seconds) and it is sent to all phones on the list within 1 minute.  It will redial a certain number of times until an answering machine or person answers.  It does not call anyone prior to 9am or after 9pm.  You can see on line who got the call, where an answering machine picked up or no answer.  It cost 5 cents per person called – a pretty cheap method for quick/dependable communications.

Another, more modern method is to do a mass text message.  You set them up in your phone and it sends a text to everyone.  If you have limited text messages on your phone like 250 or someone like my wife who doesn't have text, this method won't work.  But as this form of communication grows among our children, texting will become a more common, convenient, inexpensive and reliable way to get messages out to your team.

Let me repeat that you should not rely on any one method – the more times a message is delivered the more likely it will be received.  Make sure that your message is consistent and accurate regardless of the method of delivery.  Another caution is to make sure that only one person is communicating – mixed/different messages will cause a tremendous amount of confusion and chaos within your team.  The key words to happy parents are: communication, communication, communication!

Meet the Parents.....Your First Parents Meeting

As in the hilarious Robert DeNiro and Ben Stiller film from the year 2000 chronicles, the first meeting of your players’ parents can be a nerve racking experience. Jack Byrnes (DeNiro) plays the father of Gaylord ‘Greg’ Focker’s (Stiller) girl friend. As the cover of the DVD captures, he puts Greg through the paces including background checks, lie detector tests, etc. to be certain that he passes the test to marry his daughter. Having just gone through the process of having a young man ask for my daughter’s hand in marriage, I can relate to Jack Bryne’s feelings. Let’s reel this in to baseball – hang with me here.

Your first introduction to the parents of the players you drafted can be just as nerve racking as the awkwardness that comes from the first time you meet your sweetheart’s parents. Sans the lie detector test, they are handing over their children to your supervision for the baseball season. They take this quite seriously as you would expect – you have to take the responsibility just as, if not more, serious as they do.

As the saying goes, you only have one chance to make a good first impression. It is important for you to take charge of this first meeting and present yourself as well organized. To accomplish this plan to have your first parents’ meeting at the end of your very first practice – have them show up 30 minutes early and begin the meeting promptly. Prepare an agenda to assure that you cover everything you wish to cover. By writing a name on the top of each agenda, it is an easy way for you to keep track of the parents who showed up for the meeting. This will also give you the opportunity to make arrangements to have one-on-one meetings with the parents who were unable to attend the meeting. To add a professional touch (which most parents have not seen from other coaches that their child has played for) prepare the agenda on a computer. A nice touch is to include your sponsor’s logo or your team’s mascot on the documents. Here is an example of an agenda from my book for you to use as an example: Sample Agenda.

Introduce yourself and your background/experience and why you volunteered to take on this responsibility. Ask the parents to give a brief introduction of themselves as well. If your team draws from several school zones, have them share which school their child attends as this gives them a common bond with other parents that could serve as an ice breaker. Share your coaching philosophy openly so they know where you are coming from and what you expect from them and the players. Use this opportunity to pitch the opportunities that you have for parents to assist your team as volunteers. Recommended volunteers and job descriptions will be posted in a future blog but the more involved you can get your parents in what you are doing, the better their experience and yours will be.

I have found over the years that you cannot under communicate with the parents. You will be going over many important things during this meeting and the retention of those attending will be limited. For that reason and the fact that, in many cases, both parents will not be attending the meeting summarize the important points that you wish to communicate in a letter. As you did with the agendas, write the players name on the top of each letter to keep track of who you talked to.

The preparation for this meeting takes time and effort as do most of the recommendations that I make in my Coaching Made Easier book. The dividends are that the efforts will be rewarded with a better win/lose record and happier players and parents at the end of the season.