New Coaches

Remember what it was like at your first training session? Especially if it was an entire Club training…? Especially when you might be coaching people who’ve played a year or so more than you, and therefore who might think they knew more than you…?

New coaches are going to need support. Yes, there’s an element of “throwing in at the deep end” that works very well, but they may well need encouragement to get on with it, and advice on what they could be doing better.

They also need to know all those little things that you now take for granted: where to stand, how many balls you’re going to need, what to do when your session’s overrunning on time, what to do when you planned a session for 20 people and only ten turned up.

Help them out. Direct them to the Hints and Tips section, and any others. Keep asking them questions so that they can evaluate themselves and generate their own feedback. Try and help them set goals so they can see their own progress. It’s not easy to keep track of everything that’s going on, but the more you can do so, the more it’ll be appreciated.

Finally, which seems to go against everything that’s just been said, make sure they do get a chance to coach without a safety net. Otherwise everything else is useless. I can’t stress this enough – a coach that doesn’t have the chance to sink or swim in a forgiving situation will either slowly give up on coaching, or will not develop properly. Either way you’re screwed a couple of years down the line.