Tips for Speaking at a Clinic

1) For the love of all that is Holy, please please please, do not...Spend 50 minutes out of 60 minutes of your clinic talking about your background and previous season's stats, and weight program, and all your guys who have made it to P5 and NFL, and then spend only 5 minutes talking about actual scheme and then 5 minutes on choppy film where you can't even tell what TF is going on. Lol

This first one above is the bane of all clinic-goers. This is rule 1, above all others. Some clinic-goers are spending money to fly across the country both to the clinic and back, spending money on lodging for 2-3 nights, spending money to eat out, and spending money to go the clinic. Nobody wants to deal with the above scenario when taking all this into account

2) Depending on what you are talking about in the clinic talk, if it's scheme-related, I recommend picking a few things and be very very specific and microscopic in your focus on those, this as opposed to hitting a bunch of different things at only surface level and end up providing little to no actionable and helpful information

3) As much as possible, have IT issues worked out, have your PowerPoint completely set and ready to go when it's time for you to go live

4) Have a loose script/guide for your talk, and do your best to stick to it. You don't want to get bogged down at a certain point or two, and then when it gets toward the end, you are out of time to discuss whatever you still needed to discuss. It's even worse when the part that gets cut off is the most crucial part of the whole talk...There's been very few clinics in my experience, even by the maestro Nick Saban, where they haven't ran out of time

5) This ties into the IT issues above, but do the best you can to make sure that the film is good quality, it's tough to learn from film when every single time the player in question goes to execute a certain technique, the film skips/is choppy and you can't even see the dam technique...

6) Have a good laser pointer to point to different things on the film. Drives me nuts when coaches say "This guy here, and this guy here", and I have little to no understanding of who out of 11+ guys on the field he is referring to. Bring your own laser pointer, heck bring two just in case, do not count on the clinic to have them...

I hope this is helpful for you. Best of luck!

Avoid the dreaded resume slide or make it brief.
Make your slides and video available ASAP to the attendees after the clinic.
If you are speaking at a clinic be prepared for follow up emails after the clinic and answer them.
Have an outline of your talk.

Sometimes I have heard a a coach speaking on O or D scheme and he is critical of the other team. Saying things like "these guys are no good we could do whatever we wanted....". Don't say that.

Don't be the guy with the slide that says "Why the XXX scheme?" And then list a bunch of things like "don't need as many big guys, speed on the field, etc." Every ody does that slide no matter what their scheme is.

On that last one, not only is it not classy, it ironically undermines the supposed efficacy of their scheme they are trying to present to you. Haha

great post

I spoke at one last spring for the first time, I actually really enjoyed it. Like any presentation or lesson, make sure you are prepared. I practiced my presentations several times before the actual clinic. One, that way that wasnt dead air, and I wasnt stuttering and stamering around, and I could learn my transitions. 2 to make sure that the info I have fit in the time slot that I had. I thought I did fairly well, enjoyed it, and thought I would probably do it again sometime, if given the chance.

Great advice on here.  The best in my experience is "Pick one specific topic (play/scheme) and teach it like you were teaching your coaches. "   That is a great way to approach it. 

Don't tell me about the 300 pound nose guard you have that can bench press a truck and 2 gap, demands a triple team and allows your LB's to just run and make tackles. That doesn't help!

Worst thing I ever heard at a clinic was a college coach talking about how his safety could come from the opposite hash and fill the alley to the field to make a TFL. When asked how he would adjust if he didn't have that type of kid, He said and I quote "Well then we wouldn't have recruited him to play for us"

If you are talking on defense tell me what type of kid plays the position. I don't need body weight specifics but information like he is a wrestler type kid, small for a LB but slow for a safety type kid. A description of the type of player that we can picture in our head.

Best quote I ever heard at a clinic, "Good Afternoon, we all know why I am up here talking to you guys today. I had the best kids last year, lets get started"

Glazier in KC.

ok - so share it!!!

I wanna see PowerPoint Diagrams, game film, and drills the more of that you can give me in a 1 hour session usually the better your clinic was.

Make sure that you mention how the other schools in your conference are loaded with Power 5 war daddies but your kids are all crippled sheep.

Numerous good suggestions have been given above!! I rehearse what I want to do/say with my PPT, so I can have my timing right and leave time for Q&A at the end. I ask those in the audience to write their questions down so they can ask them and be addressed in the final 10-15 minutes. I may be harsh, but I do not like taking Q's during the process of the presentation, b/c it always has seemed to throw the timing off on everything, and I've been in the audience where this happened and the key points were never covered by the speaker b/c of it. That said, I have deviated from that a few times when someone seemed adamant about stopping me (sometimes it was a great question, but more often it was about something that would be coming shortly in my talk). And.....there have been a few times due to the content that I told those present to raise a hand and I would address questions throughout the program, if it was a topic that lent itself to such discussions. Depending on the venue and expected crowd, I always take 20 to 150 handouts that are either the "Slides and Notes area" format, or full-sized slides, or supplementary info related to the slides. I also typically have a sign-up sheet asking for their emails and name neatly written if they did not get whatever handouts I had - that they did not get. I also have my email address at both the beginning of the presentation and end on slides. That way those who were there early/on-time got it (some people do need to leave early for good reasons too) and for those who entered late and my handouts were all gone. I've had really good emails from folks seeking clarifications or asking good questions, or offering their insights and feedback.