Tips to becoming the best high school football coach

Becoming a high school football coach can be one of the most rewarding jobs you can have, but it takes a lot of hard work and dedication to grow and become an elite coach. One of the best ways to improve your abilities as a coach is to keep an eye open for tips and suggestions from others who have gone before you. In this article we'll offer you a few tips of our own that should help you to grow as a high school football coach, and ultimately lead to more success. If you're looking for some great tools that will help you in your practices and during games, check out our line-up of products by clicking here.

"Utilizing RII Sports Technology during our weekly preparation has greatly improved our game planning as an offensive staff. We have been able to quickly identify opponent tendencies and present this information to our players. The greater understanding of our opponents has allowed us to rank among our conference leaders in almost all offensive categories, which has translated to more wins on Saturday!"

- Brian White, Offensive Coordinator at Rose-Hulman

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Listening and learning

One of the best things you can develop when starting out as a high school coach is to learn how to listen to others, and how to react. You'll have a lot of people outside of the team who want to make suggestions to you. From what type of offence to run, to how many minutes to give certain players, learning how to properly deal with people who have suggestions is a very important part of coaching. If these suggestions or criticisms are dealt with poorly, you can easily find yourself burnt out or looking for a new position. You'll also need to learn how to listen to the players on your team. A football team is made up of several types of personalities (as I'm sure you already know), and this often means that you'll be responsible for being more than a coach, as you'll become a mentor as well. High school is an important time of growth in many people's lives and it's important that you allow your players voices to be heard, while still maintaining a position of leadership. If you become open to listening to people's problems, criticisms, and suggestions it will help you to grow as a person and hopefully also yield better results on the field.

Learn to balance your time

According to rd.com, most coaches put in about 20 hours of work as a coach outside of their regular full-time job. If you're lucky enough to receive a full-time position as a football coach at a high school, then we're sure you'll find rather quickly that your 40 hour work week easily turns into a 60 hour work week. Learning how to balance the time you spend focusing on the game with the time you need to spend with you family and other important matters is a must. To help in this area we suggest that you begin keeping track of how much you'll spend working on each area of your life weekly. Set aside time each week to spend with your family, or even to maintain a healthy social life. Working overtime as a coach can yield positive results, but it also generally means that something else in your life will begin to trail behind. Stay organized and prioritized.

Choose your assistant coaches wisely

The people who work alongside you can either make your workplace a whole lot easier, or a whole lot more complicated, so when it comes time to pick your assistant coaches choose wisely. A lot of high school coaches tend to work alongside whoever may be presented to them, but according to johntreed.com this may actually be the wrong move. When choosing your assistant coaches always try and bring somebody onto your team who is either a close friend or somebody who has earned your respect in previous coaching endeavors. If you have a choice in the matter, never allow the family member of a player to join your coaching crew as it could lead to some very unfortunate politics on and off the field.

Run a no-huddle practice

A lot of coaches focus their practices on conditioning or low priority drills such as running the stadium steps or grass drills, but if you're going to be an effective coach you should spend your time focused on more specific drills. A good coach will instil the importance of condition and strength in their players so that they will make themselves responsible for that aspect of being a football player. Your job should be to teach them about the game, to show them the most effective ways to use that conditioning to their advantage. As mentioned on johntreed.com, running a no-huddle throughout your practice you will be able to get in more drills and walk-throughs while still providing them with a conditioning boost. We would also suggest that you provide your players with conditional assignments throughout the week that they can complete on their own time. They receive homework in all of their classes, why should athletics be any different?

Find tools and programs that make your life easier

As we mentioned before one of the biggest struggles high school coaches have is making time for everything. For this reason alone we suggest that you always be on the lookout for tools and products that can make your life easier as a coach. From organizers to playbooks or software programs, there are a lot of options out there that can make coaching easier and more effective. Here at RII Sports we have a couple of great tools for high school coaches including the Gamebreak Scan and the Gameday Scout. Both of these products will help to give you better insight to both your team and your upcoming opponent's team. Click here now to learn about the products we have at RII Sports.

Sources: http://www.rd.com/advice/parenting/high-school-coach-wont-tell-you/
http://johntreed.com/blogs/john-t-reed-s-football-coaching-blog/61648899-what-are-the-most-common-mistakes-youth-football-coaches-make