What Does It Mean To Be a Coach?

Responsibilities

• Designing and implementing annual training curriculum and schedule

• Building process documentation and administrative templates

• Coordinating and planning annual intake schedule for new skaters and volunteers

• Training assistant coaches

• Working directly with new rookies, training them as skaters and conducting regular 1:1 meetings to ensure they feel supported and comfortable

Lessons Learned

• Documentation is key! 

  • We didn't have a repository of documentation or planning information from previous seasons, so one of my top priorities has been to create a legacy of records for future coaches.

• Assume people will be successful!

  • Two of my assistant coaches had never coached before. I started them off by shadowing me a few times, then encouraged them to write their own practice plans and submit them to me for tweaking. I would then shadow and assist them while they coached. After a few practices, they were both completely independent!