Coaching content provided by the NSCAA

A Good Coach and Manager
(Part 3 of 3)

Off-field activities must be organized and work delegated
By Karen Stanley

Referee management issues
The referee's role - To ensure safety for the players and to enforce the rules. Coaches must approach referees in an ethical fashion, keeping these factors in mind. Players and coaches make mistakes. So do referees, but referees don't have the ability to criticize players and coaches in a public fashion. The same professional courtesy should be extended to them.

The refereeing profession - One might think about how effective a surgeon would be if every move in the operating room were critiqued. NISOA's program of referee training is excellent, as most coaches would agree.

The coach's role - Support the referees in their decisions in the same manner as you as a coach would expect your assistant coach to support you.

Good sportsmanship and ethics - An excellent team goal is to be awarded the NSCAA Team Ethics Award of Merit for the fewest yellow card citations each season. Players are not to react negatively to officials' decisions. If they retaliate against an opponent or overreact to referees, the coach should remove them from the field.

Bridging the gap - Bring in a referee during preseason to discuss new rule interpretations and changes. Have players enroll in referee courses. Use the NISOA/NSCAA video "Critical Match Incidents" as part of your team training. Call unfair fouls during team scrimmages. Teach the team to recognize that players will not always agree with calls but they are part of the game and the players must learn to accept them.

Teaching tools - Learning to deal with authority and accepting different refereeing styles is an important lesson for players. They must learn to adjust to referees as they will have to learn to adjust to different fields, opponents, circumstances and situations in their lives.

Parental management
Involvement - College is a time for players to disconnect from parents. Regardless of your coaching environment (youth, high school, college), the role you expect parents to play should to be spelled out prior to the season.

Parental support - Their support is needed. Find roles for them. Many offer a variety of talents that can be integrated into your programs. Encourage game attendance but tell them that they must be encouraging, support your coaching decisions and not criticize the referees. If they want to discuss the coach-player relationship, the issue of playing time is not to be an issue for debate.

Win-win philosophy - Everyone feels good when the coach/player, coach/ parent and player/parent relationships are in sync.

Team travel
Travel rules - Players must be clean, respectful and courteous at all times, especially in restaurants and hotels. So the driver can concentrate, no screaming or loud rap music in vehicles. Curfew must be observed. Rules are established to ensure the team image is a positive one. One incident of poor behavior reflects on the entire team. Respect for others is paramount.

Tournaments - Because of logistics, everything must be tightly organized. Viewing of other games must be addressed. Meals during the tournament need to include when, what and how much. Warm-up length for multiple games needs to be addressed.

Organization - Eating, changing facilities, travel arrangements, training room facilities, uniform selection, halftime arrangements are all concerns in a tournament situation. Know directions and distance to site, check and recheck game times, etc., to avoid or minimize slipups.

Community involvement
Becoming involved with your community is a life skill and can be nurtured within the team.

Fund-raising - Stage tournaments managed by your team. Golf tournaments are an easy way to fund-raise and "friend-raise."

Clinics and camps - Operate an all-girls day camp where team players serve as instructors. Players learn to become role models at the camps. Adopt a younger-age team your older team can mentor. Hold clinics for them and have them be "ball girls" at your games.

Service - Have players volunteer for service at food banks, deliver baskets, etc. Train players to give back to society. By helping run clinics they learn to give back to the game.

Get your players into coaching - Identify those players who might be good coaches. Take them with you when you do clinics, teach them to be coaches. Enroll them in NSCAA coaching courses.

Mentorship - Players have to understand and accept that they are role models. Have players adopt a youth team and become involved in its activities.