Track and Field Toolbox

7 Ways Video Powers Your Player Development

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Here are the best tips and tricks for using video to grow your athletes’ skills.

As a team, your success is determined by more than wins and losses. It’s your job to create well-rounded players with correct technique and the ability to make the right decisions.

Not only is it a big undertaking, but time with players is often limited and resources are spread thin. That’s where video comes in. It’s a powerful tool that ensures learning doesn’t end after practice. With a little creativity, video can be the tool to aid your players’ development.

1. Motivate players to watch technique, not just highlights.

To build on the fundamentals, encourage your athletes to look further than the flashy moments. Video can help them adjust their focus to see the bigger picture of the game and their development.

Create playlists for your players to see and improve their technique. Here are a few ways to get started.

2. Grab an iPad and record drills at practice.

Use video at practice to give instant and specific feedback to individual athletes or the whole team. The sooner athletes can take what they see in the video and put it into action, the higher their chances of retaining that information. Plus, if you have Wi-Fi at your gym or field, upload as you record so players can review the video as soon as they head to the locker room.

3. Encourage your athletes to create a playlist of best and worst clips after each game.

When your players have a chance to identify the areas they need to improve before you point them out, it can have a lasting impact. They’ve truly owned the process and the lesson will take root. Have them pull out their five best plays from a game—areas where they made a big play, showed quick thinking or had good technique—as well as their five worst plays. This saves you time, but it also gets athletes to think about their technique and own their growth. You can give feedback on those plays and point out anything they missed.

4. Set pre-game objectives to provide a benchmarks for your players.

We’ve heard from teams who work with each player individually to set specific objectives before every game. It gives players focus in the game and provides direction as they watch video after the game. They can pull out the specific clips that reference their objective and show how they met it or where they fell short. Encourage them to add those clips to a playlist and track that objective over multiple games.

5. Track athlete progression from the first game to last.

Because you can create playlists from multiple games, you’re able to track an athlete’s progression throughout the season to see where they’ve improved and what they should focus on in the future.

  1. Pull clips of a player’s technique at the start of season.
  2. Add a custom label for that player to keep everything organized.
  3. Keep adding clips as the season continues.
  4. Share it with the athlete so they can track their own progress.

6. Quiz your athletes with comments on the video.

Playlists are an ideal tool to pinpoint the most important moments from a game, but comments can help you steer the conversation in the right direction. Use them to ask your players questions about what happened and challenge their perception of the game. Or get creative and have them search for specific things in the video.

7. Create team goals around more than wins and losses.

When the focus is on player development, it can be hard to gauge your team’s growth, especially with a younger team. You also might need to validate your coaching decisions with concerned or frustrated parents. A good way to handle this is to build goals for your team that go deeper than W/Ls. With the goals report in Hudl, you can set benchmarks for team and player progress so you aren’t discouraged if team development doesn’t translate to wins.

You might not be able to roll out all these ideas with your team immediately, but it’s important to start somewhere. When you fuel your athletes’ development with video, the results will speak for themselves.


Four Things You Can Do Today to Start Building Your Athletic Department Brand

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Building your athletic department brand is the first step in creating state cham­pi­onship-caliber programs. These principles can help you get started.

Seventeen years ago, when I started at Springfield Central High School as an assistant principal, we had one of the lowest performing athletic programs in the Western Massachusetts region and one of the largest student bodies in the Commonwealth.

There’s plenty of proud history at this inner-city school—our gym not only displays state title banners, but also the jerseys of past alums who made it to the NBA and MLB. However, the school was in the midst of a dramatic downturn in athletic success and there was little to boast about when I arrived.

Fast forward nearly two decades. Across the board, our teams are some of the most competitive in our state’s highest level. Our boys’ and girls’ basketball teams routinely reach the final weekend of postseason. Our wrestling program often wins state championships, and our football team is now considered one of the most powerful in New England. During live recruiting periods, coaches from the Big Ten, ACC, Ivy, and Patriot Leagues visit our school.

In 2018 our football team became the first to win a statewide MIAA football championship in Western Mass.

The turning point? Our brand. Building it has been a slow, methodical process with many bumps along the way, and we continue to work hard at it every day of the year. But it’s also been a tremendous learning opportunity, with the benefits far exceeding our expectations.

If you’re about to start your own brand-building journey, keep these principles in mind.

You can’t do it alone.

A team of like-minded people working alongside you is key to your initiative. I was lucky to have an administrative colleague share my views about the potential of our brand.

Together, we systematically made decisions that helped us gain traction towards our ultimate goal. We scrutinized every hire and tried to find individuals that were excellent in the classroom and accomplished coaches.

As a rule, we hire people, not resumes. Some of the most successful, effective, and influential people in our building started off as uncertified teachers working towards their advanced degrees. And any time we get a chance to hire an alumni, we do. We believe they have an intrinsic loyalty to the school and can relate to our current students. Our goal is to create a family atmosphere.

Bottom line—it takes a village. Find someone with like minded views to help you kick-start your goals.

The best ability? Repeatability.

We created a school motto that we could take immense pride in, “Home to Scholars and Champions.” Years ago, we noticed a school from the West Coast had a similar motto and was extremely successful for its area. Their students were no different than ours, so we thought, “If that school could manifest their own destiny, why not us?” Our motto was born and we never stopped pushing it.

Seventeen years later, “Home to Scholars and Champions” is what people know us by. We’ve tagged it everywhere we could—our stationary, our hallways, our gymnasium wall—and every time students underperform, we point out our motto is the expectation.

This catchy, repeatable motto is relative to almost anything in life. A scholar-athlete is more specific to the classroom, but a champion is a champion in life.

Combine consistency and creativity.

As part of our process, we realized our school’s logo needed an upgrade. Two of our most dynamic coaches came up with the solution.

Our current football coach took over a decade ago and wanted to create a unique identity for us. He created our “C” logo, an inverted two-tone twist on the University of Miami’s iconic “U” logo. All of our sports teams use the “C” in their uniforms. When anyone sees our gear, they immediately know it’s Springfield Central.

Meanwhile, our wrestling coach had been toying with another logo with our mascot, the Golden Eagles. So we combined that eagle with our “C” to create a fierce logo, a singular identity. This new logo will adorn our newly-renovated basketball court starting in the 19-20 school year.

One logo for all the teams strengthens our brand.

Rally the community.

When you’re an inner city school, everything that goes wrong in the city gets equated with the school system. It’s a tough reputation to shed. As hard as we tried, people just didn’t find academic success that interesting. It’s hard to get the attention of the media from a positive perspective.

But when you have an athletic win, they’re almost forced to put it in the paper. And our brand could be out in the community in a positive way.

It’s amazing how many people will stop you on the street to say, “Hey, you’re having a great year.” They have no idea what you’re doing academically, but when they see your name in the paper for athletics, it connects positive thoughts to your school.

I recently researched how many times our athletic teams garnered headlines in a local news outlet versus how many times we were mentioned for academic reasons. The ratio was 97 to 1. When we quantified this with a projected advertising cost, it equated to tens of thousands of dollars.

We’ve been fortunate to get the full support of our city’s political community. They want to see us be successful academically and socially, and our positive identity allows us to get the support we need.

You’ll see them at games—our mayor, our superintendent, school committee members, city councilors—cheering for us, proud of us. It drives home that what we do as an athletic department is important.

We also try to bring back alumni as much as possible. Travis Best, who was a McDonald’s All-American a quarter-century ago at Central and went on to great success in the NBA, can always be found in our stands when he’s in town. His jersey is the only retired number for any of our athletic programs.

Every year we hear stories from students who have dreamed about becoming a Central High School Golden Eagle. It’s a great feeling to know your school is providing amazing academic and co-curricular opportunities for students who are historically disadvantaged. We’ve even had students turn down full-scholarship opportunities from prep schools to become part of our community.

We don’t have all of the answers but we hope to continue to improve, grow and develop. Resources like this blog can help us, and other schools across the country, share ideas and best practices to ensure positive experiences and future opportunities for student-athletes everywhere.

 

 


The Power of an Athletic Department That Focuses on Culture, Relationships & the Extra Mile

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Former coach and athletic director Cory McCarthy shares how focusing on three main priorities made a huge impact on New Mission High School — and how they can do the same for your school.

Basketball transformed my school, New Mission High School (Boston, Mass.). We were once an alternative education school with low student growth. Our basketball teams had jerseys with numbers made of tape. We had to take public transportation to the games. Practice was running two miles to a train station and back. Having gym time was about as impossible as shaving while skydiving.

But we had players who believed this chance to play was their opportunity to survive. I remember sitting in the back of a bus from Somerville fielding questions like, “Cory, you think I can make it? Can you tell us about college? Why you still here man? We’re terrible.” We weren’t talking about basketball, we were talking about life.

Two years later, that same team was in the state championship game with only six players, one just eight post-op from hernia surgery. Our small alternative education school with the taped jerseys won a state championship, and our entire school was there to witness it.

Two state championship teams in two years.

Another year later, we had attracted even more students and clinched another state championship. And finally, when a school on the other side of town closed, we got a gym of our own.

Because of sports, we cemented our identity. Because of sports, I began to see more parents at games and meetings. Coaches can easily see the inherent value of sports—our challenge is to get kids to believe in themselves, change their course and inspire others.

Throughout my years as a five-time state championship coach, I’ve learned there are three major components in building a program that will provide student-athletes the best experience and character development possible.

Culture

Not only do coaches need to do whatever it takes to help players believe in their own value to the team, they must also understand that it’s not always the game plan that wins the game—it’s the team’s identity and philosophy.

Think of culture as a loose ball. You gotta dive for it. My focus is on making sure my players handle the honorable variables of being an athlete, like time on task, engagement, random acts of kindness and, most importantly, the two “extras” that help you win in the classroom—extra credit and extra help.

There are so many things coaches can do to build a strong culture. I spent my first paycheck as a basketball coach on making 300 t-shirts with our team logo and mantra. I handed those out to anyone who would listen. Months later, many of our freshmen showed up to school with New Mission t-shirts already on their backs. These kids had never played for me, but they were already connected to our team culture. They were Titans.

My focus is on making sure my players handle the honorable variables of being an athlete.

Relationships

If you have no idea what your players’ home situations or backgrounds are, how can you expect to coach them? Player development is not exclusive to skills and drills anymore.

It’s the conversations that happen after practice. It’s the bus ride to or from games. It’s the impact a coach can have on a player in their most vulnerable moments. You don’t even have to talk—it’s more important to listen.

Relationships help players buy in. I always kept an identity chart of my players so I could help them understand the value of being their best self even when it was hard. Be the example—teach them how to show who they are by showing them who you are.

The Extra Mile

Coaching is a job where when you win, someone else gets the credit, and when you lose, “It’s on you bruh.” It’s full of ups and downs. But when all else fails, trust in your players.

As coaches, we need to remind ourselves of the impact going the extra mile can have. It matters if I drive the 20 miles to take a player to a college visit or show up to a parent meeting. It might be the difference between life or death if I don’t check up on a kid in the summer to make sure drugs or violence hasn’t swallowed them whole.

How to Get Started

  1. Build relationships with all of your players.
  2. Have the NCAA qualifying conversation with them in 9th grade, and use the guidelines to help them in their academics.
  3. Create an environment that reflects success and family. Develop mantras, post quotes about your program philosophy or create incentives—whatever it takes to help them understand that who they are on the court is who they are off of it.
  4. Be intentional about your goals. Every step forward is a step closer to a championship.

Everyone seems to hate the phrase, “Ball is life.” But from my experience, it is.

 

Cory McCarthy spent more than a decade coaching basketball. As Director of School Culture and Climate at New Mission High School, he has helped lead the school to being named the 2012 EdVestors’ School on the Move, 2013 National Blue Ribbon School for Improvement, and the 2017 Title One Distinguished School. McCarthy has represented Boston Public Schools at conferences such as ASUGSV Technology Summit in San Diego and COSEBOC in Boston, MA and New York, and has been a guest lecturer at Emerson College and UMASS Boston.


5 Tips for Dealing with Difficult Players

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Use these ideas to help manage players who challenge your team culture.

Most athletes do their best to avoid being disruptive, but every coach has encountered their fair share of challenging players. Next time this happens, consider using these tips to improve the situation.

Make sure everyone on the team is engaged

Kids, particularly younger ones, have a lot of energy and short attention spans. Keep your practices active and get every player involved. When running drills, aim to pair or group together players of similar skill levels. Every player will feel challenged, but not intimidated.

Also consider including small group work in your practices. This can bring shy players out of their shell while ensuring disruptive players are kept busy.

Every player is unique—your behavior expectations shouldn’t be

Getting to know your players is an important part of coaching. Everyone has different on-field and off-field strengths, motivations and unique personalities. But when it comes to behavior, your expectations should be standard across the board.

“You have to be consistent in your messaging. If that is your core principle, your core value, then everything has to be in alignment with that,” Gabe Infante, head football coach at St. Joseph Prep (Pa.), said. “I think it’s very easy sometimes to lose focus. Sometimes you become emotional about things and you lose the consistency of the message. It takes practice.”

It’s no secret good players sometimes feel like they can get away with subpar behavior because of their skill. At the same time, weaker players may take a lazier approach because they don’t feel like they’re contributing. It’s important everyone on the team understands how you expect them to behave. Be consistent, no matter who breaks the rules.

Reward good behavior with positive reinforcement

When players act out, it’s often because they want attention. So the best option might not be to call them out for it or make them run laps. Instead, pull them aside and have a one-on-one conversation to address their behavior. They won’t be the focus of attention, but you’re still addressing the situation.

You’ll also want to avoid only scolding players, unless they’re putting themselves or others at risk. Try pairing compliments with constructive criticism. Encouragement is often more effective than doling out punishment.

“A lot of young people can be resistant to coaching. They mistake coaching for criticism when in reality what the coach is trying to do is just help them get better. It’s really a partnership between the coach and the player,” Shaka Smart, head basketball coach at the University of Texas, said. Punishment has its place, just be sure players understand exactly what they did wrong so they know how to avoid it in the future.

“We’re the first time that a parent hears that their son isn’t good enough. How you deliver that and how you handle your players and how you develop respect and trust with your players is where it all starts.”Gabe Infante, head football coach at St. Joseph Prep (Pa.)

Don’t forget about the parents

Make sure your players’ parents understand the rules and expectations you have for the team. While parents can help keep their kids in line, you might find difficult parents just as common as difficult players.

Kids pick up a lot from the adults in their lives, so encourage the parents on your sideline to be good sports. Don’t be afraid to tactfully tell them if their behavior is a negative influence on your team. “A coach’s job, in my opinion, is very much the same as that of a parent—to prepare your children to live life without you,” Infante said.

The other key to strong parent-coach relationships is open lines of communication. Set ground rules such as ‘wait 24 hours after a contest to talk to me about it,’ but let them know you’re available to address their concerns.

Keep your cool even when you’re frustrated

Staying calm is easier said than done, but it can go a long way when it comes to dealing with difficult players. You’ll be able to make better decisions on behalf of your whole team.

Try to understand why the challenging players on your squad might be acting out without letting them monopolize your time. Listen to their concerns and consider the challenges they may be facing at home or at school. You may not be able to fix their problems, but they’ll appreciate your effort to meet them halfway.

And when it’s time to focus on the team, they’ll be ready. “We had a team meeting in the locker room and I said, ‘Guys, from this point forward we clear the mechanism,’” Steve Specht, head football coach at St. Xavier (Ohio), said.

“I don’t want to worry about what your grade in biology is or the issues you’re having with your girlfriend or any problems. When we set foot on this field, for two hours we clear the mechanism and we have fun.”

Want more tips on how to ensure players buy in to your coaching philosophy? Check out our comprehensive guide to reaching full program alignment.


Katasha Turner Makes “Queen” Moves in Selma

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As a Black woman building a successful career in sports, Katasha Turner leans on past examples while leading the next generation of Selma High School (Ala.) student-athletes.

Maybe in other towns, a school’s motto is just words on a wall. But here, in a fiercely proud, historically Black community, the mantra “Quality Education By Any Means Necessary” is emblematic of the spirit that’s persisted since John Lewis first stood on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

That phrase serves as a rallying cry for faculty and students to dig deep and get the job done. No one embodies that energy more than the school’s athletic director, Katasha Turner.

While being interviewed for this story, Turner fielded our questions while also shepherding student-athletes leaving her track practice. That’s Turner’s happy place—the track. She was a talented runner herself before attending Alabama State where she was a student athletic trainer for track and field, as well as other sports.

She’s now the head coach for the track and varsity volleyball programs, in addition to being the athletic director. In other words, when her student-athletes head home, she goes right back to work.

While being an AD and coaching multiple sports is a tall order, continuing to coach was never in doubt. She loves it too much. And if you know Katasha Turner, you know there was no convincing her otherwise.

Following Their Example

Turner is strong-willed, grounded and hard-working. The strong women she looked up to in her youth instilled these traits in her.

Her aunts Eleanor—who worked at and served on the board of the YMCA—and Lucille—who was the president of the National Urban League—demonstrated how women should lead. Her grandma was a retired nurse that became a prominent figure in the St. Louis political scene. She taught a young Katasha how to make her voice heard in a male-dominated field.

Turner’s mother was a single parent, worked at Job Corp as a special education teacher, and taught G.E.D classes on the side. Turner admires her mother for her selflessness and dedication to those she served.

In short, her role models set the table for a glass-shattering career.

“You rarely see women athletic directors. And I mean, you rarely see African-American athletic directors,”

Taking the Reins

In 2019, Turner became just the second woman to be an athletic director in the history of Selma High School. And as a Black woman working in sports, Turner acknowledges obstacles and hurdles are everywhere.

“It’s tough as a female because people don’t think you know what you’re doing, and it’s especially tough for an African-American woman,” Turner said. “You can have all the certifications, you can have all that. But it is a challenge because sometimes people do not think that a woman knows what she’s doing.”

The stereotypes that exist against women, and Black women in particular, often deter them from pursuing roles in sports they’re qualified for (if not overqualified).

“You rarely see women athletic directors. And I mean, you rarely see African-American athletic directors,” Turner said. Few too many Black women exist in rooms where decisions are made.

That’s why Turner belongs to national organizations that work toward greater equity and opportunity for women and minorities in sports. She’s a member of the Global Community of Women in High School Sports and the National Organization of Minority Athletic Directors, or NOMAD.

Turner said building trust and getting buy-in are important for breaking through the stereotypes she faces. To earn that trust, she continues to look for ways to enrich the lives of her student-athletes.

Finding Ways to Empower Students

According to U.S. News & World Report, the Selma student population is roughly 900 students. The makeup is 99.9% Black, with 85% living in economically disadvantaged households.

Turner is committed to providing any opportunity possible to Selma students, not just to help them explore new interests, but to keep them safe.

This past year, Turner sent out a survey to students asking what activities they would be interested in if offered at their school. The results of the survey spurred six new athletic programs at Selma: 7-on-7 girls’ football, wrestling, girls’ and boys’ golf, and girls’ and boys’ e-sports teams.

Turner launched these programs because she knows how important it is to keep students active within the school. She uses the phrase “Be. B.I.G”—her shorthand for “Believe in Being Greater”—to encourage athletes to be their very best, on the field and off.

“The streets are always waiting,” Turner said. “Sometimes kids are going home to nothing, or nobody at home. But this is a chance to do something constructive and competitive. If [students] don’t like the situation that they’re in, hopefully this can be an avenue to help them maneuver themselves into other opportunities.”

Blazing Her Own Trail

Turner is the embodiment of creating opportunities through sports. In her coaching career of 16 years, she’s coached basketball, volleyball, softball, and track and field.

She opens herself to any challenge and any opportunity that comes her way—and she takes them head on. Her attitude and drive, combined with a wealth of knowledge and experience as an athlete and coach, have prepared Turner for the job she was born to do.

And now that she’s taken her seat at the table as Selma High School’s athletic director, she’s working tirelessly to provide opportunities for her students to take control of their own futures.

“I’m being the example that my mother, my grandmother, my aunts—that they showed me,” Turner said.

Katasha Turner is making “queen” moves, as she calls them: leading by example and demonstrating just how far a fearless attitude and hard work can take you.

The future is bright at Selma High School and Turner is putting her best foot forward to make sure it stays that way. By any means necessary.