Every youth organization want to be thought of as great. And at the youth level, great goes far beyond what is done on the field. It is done by the impact that we make with the kids in our community. Our coaching staff of our youth programs are the face of our program for our upcoming players and their families. That is why it is of the upmost importance to give these guys the tools to succeed at coaching our youth! 

Most youth programs do not pay their coaches, therefore these guys are out doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. With that, you’re going to get guys who may not be seasoned coaches, that is where we as an organization let me need a little extra training and that is what we want to get. As our youth program start meeting in setting up registration and other things for the upcoming season this is also a great time of year to set up a coaching development plan.

RELATED CONTENT: Clinic Season... Have a Plan!

Here is our 3 Phase Plan for developing our Youth Coaches in the off-season:

Phase 1: Evaluation and Recruitment

The first thing to do is look back at last year go through all the coaches, head coaches and assistants.  We try to evaluate each one and give them a grade.   When grading them, we do not need them to be Bill Belichick on the whiteboard. We want to get kids engaged in our program and these coaches are the catalyst for it. Our first grade is on engagement with the players.  Next we go back and find what these coaches did great, and what some of the challenges were.

We want to first identify the coaches that we want to have for next year.  Some coaches are going to age out when their kids are too old for the program.  If they were valuable we will try and get them to wither help out at the Junior High level or move back down to help a 4^th grade team.  Once the returners are established it is time to turn to our recruitment process for new coaches.  The pool we draw from is any past coaches that were great leaders in our program, then we have a feeder program of a flag league that we get both players and coaches from.  This is a great tool to watch your future coach’s interactions with kids.  One other method we use is bringing coaches in from other youth sports that have been recommended as great fits for our organization.   After your coaches are identified we still want to be able to get them to do the best job they can, and that leads us to the next phase.

Phase 2: Youth Clinic Season

The Minnesota football Coaches Football Association kicks off our training season by hosting youth football clinic. That is a great time to get coaches together and hear from some great speakers throughout the state and country.  It is held at the same time as the clinic for the high school coaches, so a perfect weekend to welcome them into our family.  In May our high school staff will run our own coaches clinic. Our high school staff leads an in-house clinic for our junior high and youth coaches.  We want these youth coaches to feel the importance of the role. We will go through just like any other clinic and do an offensive phase where we can share our beliefs and vision and “why” we do what we do.  One of the Defensive assistants will do a defensive segment, this can be anything from our blitz package to quarter’s coverage. Even though some of this may not completely translate to youth football, it does give our youth coaches better understanding of the program. 

Our head coach will talk on leadership. There is nothing more instrumental to a program than having great leadership and we strive to develop this.  We will five a detailed segment on practice planning, showing how to get the most out of these practices.  One great tool that our coaches have access to and use is the USA Football Practice Planner.  We plug in videos to the coaches to show what we want to do that day.

Phase 2 will finish with getting every coach certified in the USA Football Heads Up Football program.  Since implementing this our numbers have been on a steady incline. We find this is beneficial in many ways. First of all a lot of coaches have a stepped off the football field they were 17 or 18 years old and now their 10-year-old kid is starting to play and they want to get back in. They’ve been away a long time and the game is changed a lot. So during their USA football heads up certification they learn things like heat and hydration, emergency action plan, concussion recognition, and other general safety. They also learn proper tactics and tackling, blocking, and defeating blocks. The other great advantage of this is to get with other youth coaches and either share ideas or hear what others are talking about.

RELATED CONTENT: Prepping Coaches for the Clinic Season

Phase 3:  Pre-Season Football

The youth summer camp is the first time we try and get the youth coaches on the field to watch how the staff operates through drills.  Then right before the high school camp starts we have the youth coaches for an on-field clinic. We go through some drills with every position coach.  Then every youth coach is invited to come out for some of the early practices to see how our coaches interact with our high school kids. Again we are building a foundation and what our coaches to be part of something great. There’s an open door in the oven can have throughout the whole year.

Without a great youth football experience, the kids in your communities may not be around to star on Friday nights.  With this in mind, invest in the gate keepers of your program and double down on the valuable commodity you have with all of your programs coaches.  Let’s give these mentors every tool we can to be a Great Success!

Terry Donovan is a Master Trainer for USA Football’s Heads Up Football program. He is the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks and B backs coach for Kasson-Mantorville High School in Kasson, Minnesota. He has coached with the U.S. National Team Program. He is also a youth coach and Director of Youth Development in the Kasson-Mantorville Youth Football Association.