Youth sports organizations and coaches like to talk about how playing a sport “teaches life lessons.” However, how many actually take an active role in the process. ‘Teaching Life Lessons” is too important to be left to subtleties or chance. It often requires a deliberate, blunt, straight-forward approach by the coach.
The team at DRIVN is certainly aware of the coach’s role in everything on the field and off, and here’s how DRIVN help coaches teach their athletes life lessons?
Punctuality and Time-Management:
Do you know someone who is always late? Does it annoy you? Do you think it will annoy their future employer? Players are busy, sure. With classes, training, studying, supplemental training, their days can get filled fairly quickly. The DRIVN calendar puts all of their appointments, class, game and practice schedules and everything else in their lives into one place. And you as the coach can see the calendar, allowing you to offer help and guidance on how to better manage their time.
Goal-Setting:
Knowing where you want to be is a pretty good first step to getting there. Whether it is a wrestler trying to make weight, an athlete building strength in the weight room, a basketball player trying improve their shot, breaking down the process into manageable steps by setting goals or milestones certainly helps. Setting the goals is not enough, though. For long-term goals, especially, players have to be held accountable, meaning someone else – you, a teammate, an advisor — needs to know the ultimate goal and the progress being made. DRIVN provides tools for players to set goals and establish reminders for milestones. The coach, teammate, advisor or friend who is helping with accountability is able to monitor the player’s progress or lack of progress.
Pointing Out the Life-Lesson:
How often do you get a chance to pull an athlete aside for a simple one-on-one conversation to explain the value of something that just happened to them? Teachable moments fly past coaches all the time. How many times, have you thought of some gem of wisdom you want to pass along? When they finally get a chance to talk to the player privately, the conversation usually begins with “Remember the other day when …” The DRIVN chat feature gives coaches a platform to send quick messages to an individual player, a specific group, or the entire team. It also provides a place for players to communicate directly with each other away from the coaching staff’s ears, allowing leaders to emerge
Volunteering/Community Service
Requiring players to get involved in the community is a very important part of their growth as individuals, and DRIVN allows you and your players to record and share the hours spent volunteering. The flexibility to DRIVN allows coaches or administrators to use the feature as it is, or develop their own parameters for tracking hours.
Are you looking for a tool that helps you make a difference in your players’ lives? Schedule a DRIVN demo today