New job as coach

[Wrestler112ForLife]

I am now coaching a middle school wrestling team... Any advice anyone?

[Jean-Paul]

COOL! Work their asses off and weed out the pussies early.

[emartin10]

LOL - that's good advice JP! But seriously, be a hard ass on the mats but a good guy off. They'll respect you for that. Oh, and make sure you can whip any one of their asses, you wouldn't want to get embarassed you know...

[tGunslinger]

From my high school athletics experience:

Do NOT be political in your coaching moves. Reward the kids that bust their ass, even if they're not the most talented. And it might be nice to sometimes remember that High School Athletics are not professional athletics (my FB coach forgot that one all the time).

Good Luck.

Signed,

Still-Bitter-About-His-HS-Football-Experiences

[Marykaa]

Get the goals clear in your head..


then make a plan how to achieve them, but follow your heart to make exceptions or adjustments.

[Mahler]

Don't just coach them.
Teach them.

So many coaches go with the natural talent that is presented to them and do little to develop the rest of their team. Your best athletes are not always your hardest workers, and those kids deserve a chance to grow, too.

Mahler

[Bill2380]

Congratulations on the job. JH wrestling should be all about participation and teaching solid technique. You have a lot of weight classes to fill so you need to get as many kids interested and out for the sport as possible. Recruit, Recruit, Recruit. If you're not a teacher in the school you coach it's going to be harder, but someone has to grab kids in gym class and convince them to come out. Get big kids and small kids. It's easy to fill the middle weights, that's where most kids are. Find ways to get matches for the kids who don't start.

Show the kids all the moves you can, but don't let them rely on junk. Teach them to use the solid fundamental things that will work when they get to varsity. Don't let strong kids just get by with muscle. Eventually everyone is strong.

Most importantly, work them hard, but let them have some fun when they've earned it.

Now my advice for the really hard part, the parents. I coached my son and most of his team since they were 6. As a parent, the hardest thing in the world is to hand the keys to your kid over to a complete stranger. I kept my mouth shut and helped when I was asked. Not everyone will do that. The parent who knows everything you don't is your biggest roadblock. At the other end of the spectrum is the new kid's parent who has no idea why you're asking his/her little boy to loose weight or wrestle up against bigger competition to help the team.

Good luck and have fun. Remember, you're probably making less than $1 per hour.

[Marykaa]

BILL Love the way you think and the way you explained all that [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Tin Man]

Congrats on accepting the "calling"...this is more than a job. A couple of things...treating them fair doesn't mean equal. They are individuals, you'll need to find their currency...some live for competition...some will be like me and just want to put their head down and work like a plow horse.

At the age you're working with...technique and training fundamentals will be key. Balance the hard work with fun and I always believed in teaching a lot of theory as well.

When I coached hockey before I took the kids out on the ice I had a meeting with the parents...laid out my plan for the year and what I expected from them in terms of supporting their childs development, that also included academics.

Good luck and enjoy.

[Chris-STL]

Sounds like some great advice already for you!

In high school I wrestled on one of the most successful programs in the state of MO. We weren't successful because of talent. We were a medium sized school in SE Missouri. We were a bunch of farm boys.

We practiced from 3:30 until at least 6 every night. This time was spent combining stamina work with technique.

Most kids today will try to rely on strength to get them by; however form, flexibility, and stamina are the real keys. You need to be able to go the whole match without being winded while the other guy gasses out in just a couple min.

Our practices started out with about 20 min of jogging in a circle. Every time the whistle blew, we would practice a shot while on the move.

Next we would sit down and be show 1 new move, review the previous days move, and review a few older ones we might have trouble with.

Next we would break up with partners and practice the moves we reviewed for about 20 min.

Next started the nasty stuff, we would set up 6 stations in a circle. Each stop would last 3 min, 30 seconds on, 30 off/helping your partner. They would consist of pushups, sit-ups, partner squats (load your partner on you shoulders and squat or 30 seconds), pull ups, weights (we used preloaded hammer curl bars, we would curl, followed by a military press, followed by a tricep ext behind your head), and lastly stretching.

Next we broke into groups of 6. For 5 min you wrestled just like in a match, every time you or your partner was pinned, you started over up top. Every min the whistle would blow and a new, rested person would come in to kick your ass. If you were ever caught slacking, coach would take his 1 min. at 300+ pounds of solid muscle and Greco roman throws, you did not want this to happen.

Finally we would go upstairs to the gym break into 3 groups, and alternate running kill drills. If you came in last, you ran with the next group. It really sucked to be the slowest kid.

We did this 6 days a week.

Now, obviously you are not dealing with High School kids here. However make sure you stress the fitness part of this. It always amazed me how few real moves you needed if you could do them perfect and were conditioned well.

[von_Hayes]

Gosh, I could go on for a long time. The truth is coaching is teaching...... you have to find your coaching style that fits your personality. Sometimes you have to adapt your style and you approach depending on your talent.
some key pointers
focus not on outcomes (winning), but processes such as getting better everyday

-don't listen to the parents, the media, or the players..... develop thick skin

-there really isn't any right way to do things except with character and confidence.

-you can fool the parents, the school etc., but you can't fool the kids. be prepared and organized.

-Yelling doesn't make you a good coach. if you were a good coach they'd be listening anyway.

-be consistent with discipline

-Remember you are in charge not the kids. if the kids were in charge they wouldn't need a coach. so, make the tough decisions yourself.

most of all .... good luck and welcome to the profession.

[Phaedrus49er]

Congrats on the position, Coach [img]smile.gif[/img] Discipline is job #1. Just like in a regular classroom, lay out your objectives, expectations, and ground rules from the outset. Have a discipline plan in mind (usually running of some sort or pyramid drills--more on that later) but don't give a laundry list of penalties. Some of the kids might enjoy the punishment more than the practice itself. Make sure the consequences are worse than the practice.

Pyramid drills (punishment style) - One wrestler starts in the middle against another wrestler one weight class below. They go at it until someone scores a fall/back points/pin (your choice). Then a wrestler in the same weight class steps in, and they go again. That one wrestler stays in until he's wrestled as far up the weight ladder as you feel is safe for him. You can also do this as a team drill by starting with the two lightest wrestlers with the winner staying to take on the next lightest person, working your way up to the heaviest person. Make sure you keep a puke can nearby [img]smile.gif[/img]

FWIW, I just found out today that Sacred Heart University just up the road in Fairfield has open mats in the spring after the season is over. I am SO there

[Wrestler112ForLife]

Thanks everyone for your input. The kids are all doing well, I got a couple standouts and some kids that have potential. I will be putting a big emphasis on neutral.

And I can whip there butts as punishment I will wrestle some of the bigger ones for getting a detention or something like that....

But the good part of this job is the pays not bad... it's a fairly wealthy SD in the suburbs of Philadelphia