When you think about the upcoming season, how do you think about your team?

Do you think about it in terms of offensive, defensive and special teams units? Or do you think about this from a position-specific perspective and consider your tight ends, running backs, nose tackle, kicker, etc.?

How often do you think about your coaching in terms of the person inside the position to identify what Jacob, Brooklyn, Mason and Courtney need?

"Coach the person, not the player" is not a new phrase in coaching vocabulary. Coaching the person allows us to personalize their learning and develop not just the physical, mental, technical and tactical requirements of the position and the game but help them build their personal and social skills.

Developing this broad skill base relies on building and maintaining a high-quality relationship. Look at the strategies listed below. Challenge yourself to consider which of these you use and integrate into your own coaching. Perhaps rank your answer on a scale of 1 – 10, with 1 being not at all and 10 being all the time.

Look at your responses and create an action plan to help you coach the person as well as the player more effectively:

Get to know the person behind the player. In order to personalize the coaching experience and the development journey of players, get to know them. Have a conversation with the players themselves and potentially parents, siblings and or teammates to find out more. Try to establish the following:

• What’s motivates them

• What makes them frustrated

• Why they play football

• What other sports they play, like and are good at

• What they like and don’t like

• What are they like at school? Their favorite subjects and teacher perhaps

• What they are the like socially

Some players may find a one-to-one conversation difficult so perhaps ask them to complete an "About Me" form.  This gives the player freedom to profile themselves. It will give you a head start for the first conversation, which is so critical in building the coach-athlete relationship. Use open questions. Give them time and space to think and share. Listen to them.

Profile current skills and plan to develop potential. You will already know how important SMART goal setting is. In order to achieve team goals, it is important that each person knows exactly what they need to do. Creating individual performance plans is critical. Ensure that you profile players' current skill base (technical, tactical, physical, personal and social) using their perceptions, perhaps from the "About Me" profiling form. Also use age and stage appropriate performance benchmarks. Knowing their starting point is essential to developing their potential. Players will take ownership and responsibility if these plans are negotiated and agreed. Personalized development plans should also be used to monitor and evaluate the player’s growth and achievements.

Offer unconditional support. Once the performance plans have been created, stick to them. There is no linear path from novice to expert, since everyone is different. It is easy to be supportive and encouraging when the player is achieving success; Less so, when the person is struggling on and off the field. Consider how you communicate with them, especially during hard times.  Think specifically about the words you are using and the tone and tenor of the message delivered. Also consider what message your body language is sending. Ensure you complement the words being shared as opposed to sending mixed messages.

Be honest--not "nice." Throughout the development journey it is important to be considerate and honest. There is a temptation to tell the players and even parents what they want to hear rather than what can help them reach the next level. Being "nice" may be useful in the short term but it will not support the longer-term development process and may well undermine your authority and competence as a coach.

Take learning as an opportunity for growth. Every situation, whether the outcome was successful or not, will provide you with the potential for new learning. Ensure you take the time to reflect with your player to identify the positives (as well as opportunities for improvement) and create goals for next time.

Ask yourself what you can do. Reflecting on the player’s achievements is obvious. How well do you reflect on what you did to help they player learn? Always examine your effectiveness as a coach as well.

RELATED: Sometimes players hear the voice of a coach better than the voice of their own parent

Sarah McQuade is an independent coach education consultant, owner and director of e.t.c coaching consultants and co-director with The Coach Learning Group. To learn more about accessing how-to coach skills workshops click the Coaching Skills button at www.etcoachingconsultants.com.