Designing the Four-Quarter Plan:

The high school football game has evolved quickly in the modern age and the expectations of the head coach have expanded far beyond X’s and O’s. A head coach in the 21st century football era needs to wear many hats and meet the demands of their stakeholders in a multitude of ways. In previous articles we discussed establishing the belief, marketing, public relations and branding plans of developing a program by design. In this installment, we will take a deeper look into how to orchestrate a four-quarter year-round program that fully supports your business plan.                                                                                       

Event Planner

As the head coach and CEO of the football program, it is our job to establish the vision of the program and then work intently to create experiences that support and enhance these beliefs. Every event that is brought into your program must tie back into your belief, vision and mission in a specific and intentful way. We are the writers and producers of our program book. If the belief, vision and mission are the words then the experiences we create act as the illustrations. If executed well, the experiences can serve as an emotional connection to your belief system and exponentially reinforce and enhance the words you have created. Experiences bring to life our program and give dimension and a sense of tangibility to our vision. The old saying of “show me, don’t tell me” rings true when developing a program. Without experiences to support your belief system, the words will fall flat and be viewed as lip service. This is a hard prospect for many as it means that every decision and situation must be thought out from all angles and its overall impact on the program. However, if we truly want to strengthen and grow our program it is an essential step in its maturation process. The life of a program’s culture is dynamic and never static. Each day small experiences made by each stakeholder are either strengthening or weakening it. Understand it, communicate it and be relentless in your desire to uphold what you have worked so hard for.

RELATED CONTENT: Building a Program Culture by Design: Beliefs/Behaviors/Mission/Vision

Reflection

The season is over, and the equipment is turned in. Now is the time to begin to build and plan your program’s yearly calendar. Coaches are exhausted and families want their dad back, but if we take the opportunity to reflect on our previous year and build for the upcoming it can save us time in the long run. The reflection process is essential to a program’s growth mindset. If we agree that a program’s culture is never static, then we must review what we did in the past so that we can grow in the future. “Feed the roots to get to the fruit!”

 Ask the questions:

• What went well?
• Where are we strongest?
• What would I change?
• What areas are we weakest?
• What does this new group need from our program?

 

Be honest in your personal evaluation, take the rose-colored glasses off and allow yourself to be vulnerable. If we can be unbiased in our assessment, then we can truly create a program that will grow our culture. 

RELATED CONTENT: Strategic Planning Aligning Your Program Through a Systematic Approach

Collaborate

The reflection process should not be limited to just the executive team. Allow the players, parents and staff to be part of the work. When we allow everyone to have a hand in the reflection process it affords each person the opportunity to increase their investment in the program. Collaborative reflection allows those who want more to buy more and those who want to opt out to step aside. I have found Google forms to be an asset when trying to compile a large amount of data. We create two end-of-year surveys – one for our staff and one for our players, each with the same foundation of questions with only slight variances included. For our players we will ask them to list 10 program enhancements that they would like to see for next year. While we make no promises that we will address all of them, we do make them a priority and try to accomplish at least half. When players see their opinions being heard, it strengthens their bond to the program. At St. Charles North, we say that WE> ME.

Program enhancements for 2018

• Xbox lounge
• Oversized logo for helmet
• Zorb
• Five-minute brain breaks in practice
• Practice posted and staying true to it (end when we say we will end)

  

The coaches survey also plays a large role into our program planning. With the staff, an emphasis is placed on their overall experience within the program culture, practice planning, work/life balance and scheme. As a head coach we must be flexible and value the input of the assistants. We must always view our program from their position in order to see what they see. What looks good from the head coaches chair might not from the assistants. In our program every coach has a stake in how the program is run. Their investment and value to the program is enormous and as the head coach we must make sure that they are having a positive experience within our culture as well. Consequently, discussions on vision and mission alignment must be had. The importance of proper staff alignment cannot be overlooked. There can never be a coach who is not aligned with the program’s belief system. I will take a coach who supports our vision and mission over a X’s and O’s savant every day of the week.

When involving the parent group, allow them the same ownership as you do your players and coaches as we are all equal in this! The parent experience is just as important in our program as the player experience. Their investment is the greatest in my opinion. The financial commitment, time investment and, most importantly, emotional support they must provide is enormous.  Parents are allowing us to support them in their child’s journey to adulthood. What a huge honor and privilege. The least I can do as a head coach is offer them a voice in how that transpires.  At St. Charles North, we rebranded our parent group, gave them a logo and shared the program’s vision and mission. We have aligned the belief system and they are a huge part of our program.

RELATED CONTENT: Building a program by design: marketing, branding and public relations

The Fun Factor

The reflection process allows the head coach to evaluate the state of the program as it currently stands. Once that has concluded, it is time to identify the year’s outcomes. Where do you want the program to grow? Where can it stand to improve?  What experiences will the program create? The answers to these questions will change from year-to-year. However, one aspect that should not be forgotten is that there needs to be enjoyment and fun. The thread that holds together the tapestry of your program should be fun. At St. Charles North we define fun in two ways, organic and planned fun. Planned fun are the calendared events that run throughout our yearly phasing. These can range from team outings and family events to philanthropic opportunities. However, we also include planned fun in our daily practice planning. At the end of the day the kids are out here because they either enjoy being around their friends or they enjoy playing the sport. By taking time to allow our kids and staff to enjoy the moment, we allow everyone to connect on an emotional level and associate our program with positive feelings. When speaking in terms of organic fun, these are the come together moments that galvanize and forms the team infrastructure. We place a high importance on finding the fun in the hard moments, the exhausting moments, the moment when you feel you can’t push anymore. Our players have bought into this idea and understand and, more importantly, enjoy the enormous amount of work that will be required to be elite. 

Invest in your Investment

In closing, there are many ways to create a successful program and what has worked at St. Charles North may not work at another school. You must find out how to reach your program in its own unique way. Research it, study it, plan it and then execute it. Make the monetary and emotional investment into your program. Work within the budget you have set but do allocate some funds to this development plan as it will pay you back ten-fold.