Do You GRAB Your Players’ Attention?
Full disclosure. I have never met a football coach who thinks he (or she) is boring, long winded or likes to ramble. Second disclosure. Most of our players think we fit into all three categories. Don’t feel bad. Grabbing your players’ attention is harder today than it has ever been.
This is why, no matter what level you coach, you had better be doing everything you can to combat this. Why? Some of the best game plans ever devised have gone unexecuted because they were never heard. It goes back to the old saying “it ain’t what you know. It’s what they know that matters.”
This is particularly important this time of year. Your players have heard you for two straight months now. You have taught them, coddled them, chewed their butts. You name it and they have heard it from you. If you are 6-0 then you may still have them. If you are 2-4…good luck. Our goal here is to offer you a tip or to about how to demand and grab your players’ attention as you install.
Your Players Think You Are Boring & They Might Be Right
Football coaches and football players are normally visual people. If you can attach an impressionable picture to your coaching vocabulary, that’s a good thing. Take for instance our Bear defense below. It’s on thing to install this youth football bear defense with words. Add the picture and an impression is made.
How You Teach Matters
I know a lot of you will not believe this, but the National Football League can be pure drudgery at times. Sure it is exciting and a privilege to be a part of, but try telling that to a six year veteran on day fifteen of training camp or on a 7:30 am Wednesday meeting in November.
As a coach, if you are not careful, your players will tune you out. It won’t be intentional, but after a while as they listen to you over and over, it will happen. That is unless you, the coach, do some things to grab your players’ attention. Here’s an example.
If this was a critical defense that you knew your guys had better understand, then this little visual aid could help. It would more than likely jump out in your meeting and also stick out in their mind when the Bear defense was called in the game. Sometimes the visual aids can be dramatic, sometimes funny, just as long as they grab your players attention during the teaching phase.
Check Out 6 Sound Youth Football Defenses From NFL Coaches
So as you prepare to teach your football players in a classroom setting or even on the field, consider this. Grab your players’ attention with visual aids to help your message “sink in”. This is a good idea at all levels of football, including with your youth or flag football team.
