Coach Featured Articles

Making a prospective coach spend a season as an official before qualifying for a license would solve more than one problem in youth sports. As someone who has coached and officiated baseball, soccer and basketball since the late 1970’s, I thought Ron Kramer’s “Maine Voices” piece regarding youth sports reaching a potential tipping point due to […]

If your child has a coach with these traits, their love for sports will be nurtured and the chances are much greater that your young athlete will stay in the game longer. Parents, you don’t have to settle for a coach who is not giving your child what you really want them to have in […]

Make sure it’s clear that communication is necessary and expected. An athlete should feel comfortable talking to you anytime, not just at the start of the season. Serious student-athletes are being pulled in so many directions now: from academic responsibilities, to school and club sports with seasons that often overlap. Everyone wants those teams to […]

Most athlete development experts suggest that it’s much better to move at the correct pace in your development process and not try to artificially speed it up. Q&A WITH COLLEGE HOCKEY INC. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR MIKE SNEE Speed is such a critical component of today’s game.But when it comes to player development and preparing for the […]

“When you put that uniform on, you better come to work. We will be perfect in every aspect of the game.” The film, Remember the Titans, tells an inspiring and uplifting tale of a sports team coming together and achieving the highest level of accomplishment against seemingly unprecedented odds. The team’s coach Herman Boone pushes the […]

Coaches, mentors, teachers have the undivided attention of a team more than anyone else in the athletes’ lives so take advantage of that.  Entitlement is unfortunately becoming more prevalent in youth sports today, and we have no one to blame but ourselves. What exactly is Entitlement? Easily put it’s the feeling of having the right to something. In […]

If you want your goalkeepers to catch a cross, then they must field thousands of crosses with players around them competing for the ball. The other day I got an interesting question via email from a mom of a young travel volleyball player. Her daughter and her team had missed quite a few serves their […]

Find the fun in fundamentals or be prepared for a long season. Reward creativity. Dish out praise. Build confidence levels. Find your inner kid. Dear Coaches: In roughly a month’s time, the opportunity of a lifetime will present itself to you, bringing with it a treasure trove of exhilaration, inspiration, and gratification. This unheralded adventure […]

The bane of volunteer youth coaching is the contrived hoops and barriers that discourage otherwise willing adults from participating Sports has been a lifelong passion of mine, the initial source of hope when I arrived in the United States at the age of 6 from South Korea. In those first few months, when I couldn’t […]

Coaches, continue to develop your craft- read leadership and coaching books, learn from your peer group and become the coach your athletes deserve. Most coaches will tell you a high percentage of sports, and life for that matter, is played between your ears. If you have played or coached sports long enough you know that […]