Big News!

Ok, so I have an announcement to make - a couple actually.
1. I have decided that Mondays will be my official posting day. Since I can send posts via texts, there may be the occasional quote added mid-week, and of course there's the possibility of something pressing to post on. You can mark your calendars for Tuesday mornings to stop by my blog and be assured that you'll find a new post.

2. For those that didn't know, the Wayne PAL AAU program I coach for has a newsletter detailing recent events, highlights, players an other things of note.  In the latest issue, you will find an edited version of my last post!  Please feel free to read the newsletter, and stay abreast on upcoming events and if you find time, come out and support.

Wayne PAL AAU Newsletter - May 14, 2012

A few posts ago, I mentioned a few decisions I needed to make in the near future.  Over this last weekend I did some thinking and got some feedback from a fellow coach and some close friends.  While I haven't made a decision yet, I did get some interesting things that I now am considering with more weight. One thing it seems that I need to do is develop a coaching philosophy. Educators have it, companies have it (they just call it a mission statement), and provides them with a baseline for the decisions they make.

I had delayed coming up with one before simply because I thought that the different skill sets that would appear at each season's tryout would limit the effectiveness of my philosophy, especially with younger teams. This is true, but the remedy may be one word: communication. With the older kids, you can talk to them directly and often times that is sufficient enough to keep them engaged. With younger kids you may need to go through the parents.  As I've gotten to deal with more parents, talking to them doesn't feel like such a daunting task, so it only feels like the right thing to develop as I grow as a coach. I'm hoping to get this all figured out by June as it could very well impact my decision about the Winter Travel season and possibly even the Fall.  As I was told over the weekend, "Once I developed my philosophy, it made coaching so much easier." That's the result I'm looking for.