Tips for coaching little athletes

Bob Kyle has played hockey his whole life, and he coached teenagers even before he had his own three kids. But that experience didn’t quite prepare him for his son’s first hockey team.

“I was surprised by the ‘commitment’ required from the coaches,” he says. “With the older kids, you expect them to be hanging on to every word. You don’t expect that as much from younger kids, but they feed off every reaction. If you stand there with your arms crossed, or a goal goes in and you give a big sigh, they pick up on that stuff right away. They’re so frail with their confidence. It’s all about building that up.”

What if you don’t have the confidence yourself? Many parents end up coaching sports they’ve never played because there aren’t enough volunteers. John Bales, president of the Coaching Association of Canada, says while it is important to eventually learn the rules of the game “the most important thing is that kids have fun and want to continue.”

Bales even found himself in this situation, when he coached his daughter’s soccer team for the first time. “It came time to start, and I realized I didn’t know how to start the game off,” he laughs.

Fortunately, most major sports organizations now offer training and certification. The CAC even offers a course called ‘We Are Coaches’, aimed at encouraging women to coach soccer, hockey and softball.

Keep in mind, however, that not everyone is cut out for controlling a mob of three-year-olds chasing a soccer ball, or trying to motivate six-year-olds to play baseball, rather than build sandcastles, in the outfield.

Bales says before you offer your services, ask yourself whether you have the time or the patience. There’s a lot of prep work behind the scenes – calling parents, preparing practice plans, attending coaches meetings – and, if you barely survived your child’s last birthday party with 10 kids running around, coaching every week for five months may tax your last nerve.

Of course, Bales says, there are a lot of benefits to coaching younger kids, particularly if one of them is your own. His only caution is to talk to your child before the first practice, to explain that you have to give equal attention to every child. On the flip side, he says, make sure you’re not too hard on your own child to avoid accusations of favouritism.

With a few years experience behind him now, Bob Kyle also has a few tips:

1. Be patient and don’t expect today to be the same as tomorrow.
2. Use “less conversation and more demonstration because they really only listen to the first three words.”
3. Keep the flow. “If they’re not moving, they’ll get bored.” And, he says, take the training if it’s offered.
4. “It takes you back to the basics. If you play the sport, it’s become natural for you,” he says. “Training courses remind you what it’s like to learn a sport.”
5. Above all, have fun. This year, Kyle and the other coaches on his Tyke 7 team promised to do the Chicken Dance after every win. The team went from dead last to first place by the end of the season.

“If you have a lot of fun, even if you lose, the kids will walk away with 15 new buddies. You can win every game, but not have fun, and they won’t have that. You want to make sure they remember the experience, not only the skills.”

For more tips, or training and certification information, visit the Coaching Association of Canada’s website at www.coach.ca.