Keeping your staff on edge.....

This is a Great question and worth exploring.

During our staff meetings Sunday nights, there are usually a dozen or more coaches at our Round Table in the office.

Our meetings begin at 6pm. Once I go through my checklist of things to cover, I Open things up and we have a Forum like setting. Usually working either Clockwise or Counter-Clockwise, one by one.

It is amazing to listen to the detailed insight our coaches have to share. Often times during the season coaches will have noticed something from our previous game(s), and/or practice, and they bring that subject up vividly or an aspect of that subject, and what is wrong about it, or what needs to be fixed or eliminated.

During our staff meetings they know:

1. Each Man's opinion or idea is treated with 100% respect...no matter what

2. They fully understand I don't care where a good idea comes from. If I like it - I will use it to help us win. And, they will get the credit for it from our staff, and when the timing is right from players too.

No Egos!

* However, if their idea/concept does not work, then I take the blame for it - I never put that back onto the assistants, never.

3. Usually I will let the staff know a week or two in advance, if they have ANY ideas, such as: X & O, playcalling, conditioning, techniques for DL, etc. they want to share with the staff, to have those items ready on such and such a date. And, to ensure they have enough copies for Each staff member during their presentation.

4. When we are engaged in our Forum type setting, I am the MODERATOR and Not a Participant. My job is to keep the pace of the meeting fluid and my opinions/ideas are often times the last one "on the clock" so to speak. I already know what I think normally, and want to hear my staff's ideas purely as they believe.

5. When the Forum is done - I review the Notes I have kept during that meeting with them, give my opinion to them and review or begin to develop the key topics from that night's forum.

This has been a very productive way to keep my staff on their toes, and to keep me open minded and sharp too.

KB

kurtbryan - I really love the forum idea. We do it far less informal. Ours is Sunday morning, as we are eating our breakfast.

I think it is important for everyone to be on the same page during the offseason to keep everyone sharp. We all establish goals for the season and evaluate each game, but as we wrap up the season, we determine how we need to grow and establish goals from there.

You have to plan the clinics you will attend and the schools you will visit. All of that relates to what you want to accomplish as a staff.

I think the hardest thing for young coaches to do is to learn how to grow as a coach. "The love of the game" they had when they played needs to translate to a bigger picture. If they don't have that, the HC needs to bring it out in them.

On average during the season our Weekly Forum takes between 30 minutes to 1 hour total.

KB

A Sunday meeting would never work in an LDS community. One of our coaches in the Bishop Rick and he spends at least 10 hours of his Sunday at the Church. We spend time after the game on friday nights. Not talking about football in the sense of what we need to do for the next week, but more of a social time to eat and talk about the game.

Pn Saturdays we watch film as units from 8-10:30 AM and then again with the kids from 10:30-12:00 after we have a stretch with them. then we may have a quick meeting as a staff after film on Saturday. We are usually done by 1:00 PM on Saturday.

I am not an HC, but I would enjoy the forum on Sundays just to get ready to go. Ussually, the DC and I will meet for an hour or two on Saturday nights watching film and drawing up cards for scout Offense and Skelly. This really is a leg up to get on the same page.

Put exercises together in the off-season to keep the staff sharp.

An idea that I had was having "clinic sessions" all through the winter and spring. Assign each coach something to study-up on and report out in a meeting format. It could be anything, and perhaps you have 2-3 reports per meeting. The format could be that you have one clinic on an X's and O's topic (defending the DW, for example), one clinic on a fundamental topic (improving blocking fundamentals, for example), and one on program building / athletic improvement (weight room program, for example).

Rotate the coaches and the type of assignment each meeting, and have them prepare for it (handouts, powerpoints, film, etc.). Make sure there is time for discussion and comment around each topic at the end, so that the rest of the staff can interact and learn.

Another great thing is to assign assistant coaches to clinic the youth coaches. Get a list of topics from the youth coaches in your town that they would like to cover, and assign assistants to do some of those topics. This gets everyone out of their "comfort" zones, because they are not surrounded by familliar faces, and forces them to really know their stuff.