This weekend marked the first Change the Game conference sponsored by Boston University’s School of Education, Edgework Consulting, and Up2Us Sports. The idea behind the conference was to examine Sports System re-Design (SSrD). Read the rest of this entry »
Re-Designing the Sports Experience
April 28th, 2012Gamification: Where did youth sports go wrong?
April 6th, 2012In the talk below, author and entrepreneur Gabe Zichermann argues that real life moves too slowly for children raised in a video-game world. Rather than crying about the dreadful video games and their negative effects, we should embrace video games and the gamification of our society. Read the rest of this entry »
The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy and Coaching Behaviors
March 10th, 2012After watching a team for several games, one can see the effect of the coach’s behaviors on the team and the individual players. One frequent issue is a coach who lacks confidence in his or her post players. I have watched several coaches like this in the last couple years; regardless of what happened, the coach blames the post player. Read the rest of this entry »
Is the Goal of Coaching to Educate or to Train?
March 5th, 2012I am preparing to teach a class on constraints-based coaching, and spent the weekend looking at different online videos in order to “flip” the classroom. I have returned to the video below several times because of one of its early points about education and training. Read the rest of this entry »
Youth Leagues: Director of Coaching Development
September 27th, 2011Last month, I suggested one way that a youth organization could raise the funds to pay someone to nurture, develop, assist and train volunteer coaches. I speak to organizations on a regular basis, and most acknowledge a need to offer coaches more assistance, but then they rattle off the excuses as to why they cannot improve the coaching in their organization. Read the rest of this entry »
How do we show our values in youth sports?
August 29th, 2011Every time that I speak to a youth organization, they emphasize the constraints that they face to improve the coaching in their organization. The two primary constraints are finances and volunteer coaches. These seem to be fate de complis for youth organizations. Read the rest of this entry »
Is coach education important to improve basketball development?
August 25th, 2011A fraction of coaches are insulted any time that anyone (me) suggests that changes are necessary to improve the basketball system or environment, especially when one of those necessary changes is more coach education. Coaches argue that great coaches like Bob Hurley demonstrate that there are plenty of great coaches, yet conveniently ignore coaches like Joe Keller who illustrate exactly why reform is necessary. Read the rest of this entry »
ACL Injury Epidemic – The Solution Starts with Coach Education & a Change away from Peak by Friday Mindset
July 15th, 2011ACL injuries have become a politicized issue, as evidenced by Wendy Parker’s latest column. While pundits and activists battle, the larger issue is muddied: the rhetoric has no effect on changing the epidemic of injuries. Rather than writing about rehabilitation or prevention programs, the injury issue creates a gender war.
The epidemic boils down to two issues: (1) Lack of education and dissemination of information to coaches and (2) the Peak by Friday mentality. Read the rest of this entry »
Impressions of Coaching
May 19th, 2011I am in the midst of teaching “Introduction to Coaching” as an online course this summer. I started the class by showing this video. I thought some of the responses to the video are revealing, as they are the impressions of college students who are not too far removed from their playing days. Read the rest of this entry »
Feedback for Teachers and Coaches
April 13th, 2011Last week, I did a presentation on teacher feedback, but I used coaching concepts and an article by Ronald Gallimore and Roland Tharp titled “What a Coach Can Teach a Teacher, 1975-2004: Reflections and Reanalysis of John Wooden’s Teaching Practices.”
Here are the slides for the presentation: Read the rest of this entry »