Game Scheduling
One of the most important responsibilities that a coach of a team or a director of a club have is scheduling of games for their teams. This action is so important for properly developing your teams and should not be taken lightly. A lot of coaches or directors prefer to schedule games for their teams which will help their organization be more marketable. It looks great on a club website when you see pictures of teams with medals around their necks and mentions of teams that have incredible records. To me what this shows is a lack of desire of a coach to push his team regardless of how talented they are. To me properly scheduling games has a balance to it that if optimized can greatly help your teams confidence.
When considering scheduling, you need to first take stock of the quality of your team. How good is it compared to your prior teams? How much size does it have? How much speed does it have?
After you take stock of your own team you need to think about scheduling. If you have a really good team you may want to ask yourself the following questions:
One of the key goals you should have as a coach is to have your team be around breakeven for the year in terms of wins. You don't want them to lose all of their games, yet if they win all of their games especially by huge margins they are not being properly challenged. So avoid demoralizing your team by scheduling very difficult games but also avoid not challenging them by having them play teams that are nowhere near their level. I always say that a score of +/-10 points at a grade school level is a waste of time, especially if your on the plus side of that result. Your kids will simply not learn anything. If you as a coach have to spend time figuring out how not to embarass the other team by pulling the reins in on your team then how is that teaching your kids anything. It may teach them sportsmanship by my point is that those games should not be scheduled at all. There is no benefit to your team when the coach is trying to figure out ways to keep his own team from scoring.
In closing, the name of the game when running a team is competition. Your goal as a coach or as a director is to help the kids grow. One of the best ways to do this is by finding them challenging games to play in.
When considering scheduling, you need to first take stock of the quality of your team. How good is it compared to your prior teams? How much size does it have? How much speed does it have?
After you take stock of your own team you need to think about scheduling. If you have a really good team you may want to ask yourself the following questions:
- Is this team good enough to compete against A level competition in it's age group?
- Is this team too good for A level competition in its age group? Should it compete against kids older than they are?
- Can this team compete against C level competition in it's own age group?
- If not should it move down an age group?
One of the key goals you should have as a coach is to have your team be around breakeven for the year in terms of wins. You don't want them to lose all of their games, yet if they win all of their games especially by huge margins they are not being properly challenged. So avoid demoralizing your team by scheduling very difficult games but also avoid not challenging them by having them play teams that are nowhere near their level. I always say that a score of +/-10 points at a grade school level is a waste of time, especially if your on the plus side of that result. Your kids will simply not learn anything. If you as a coach have to spend time figuring out how not to embarass the other team by pulling the reins in on your team then how is that teaching your kids anything. It may teach them sportsmanship by my point is that those games should not be scheduled at all. There is no benefit to your team when the coach is trying to figure out ways to keep his own team from scoring.
In closing, the name of the game when running a team is competition. Your goal as a coach or as a director is to help the kids grow. One of the best ways to do this is by finding them challenging games to play in.
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