Observing Your Next Sporting Event

​Pitching in to support your children in their endeavors has a name. It’s called parenting. It’s a noble role and duty that changes with the decades. Currently from the ages of 4 to 14 there are many different roles a parent can fulfill in the area of youth sports. The roles have different levels of authority and requirements. Head Coach, assistant coach, team manager, culture keeper, league treasurer, league president, end of season of pizza party planner, are all roles parents fill. 

Both Sara and I have enjoyed participating and working with the kids and others parents these past ten years. What caught our eye this year is that after moving towns, we went from a head coach, league president, large authority role to that of an assistant coach. 

The opportunity to not have to coordinate and orate to 15 players on a team and to 200 players in the league and 30 to 400 parents left a void that allowed an observation framework to appear. This year we had room to see players individually be afraid of failure and to encourage them. Our interest in building framework for others to use also led us to come up....

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​with an observation grid to reflect on what the next step in each player’s development might be.

This concept of an individual’s next step has excellent cross-over for the business world. Team sports are like companies. It is really easy to get lost watching the ball and only focusing on the key players. In youth sports, we have a charge to use the sport as a constraint to develop the player’s character and foster an interest in putting forth a maximum effort towards a shared goal. “Do your best for the team and learn how to smile and adapt in the face of adversity.”  It can be fun and it can also be hard. In fact the fun meter changes over time. Sports Fun goes from going to the ice cream store kind of fun to climbing a hard hill fun. Matching the challenge to the age group and interest level can be difficult. 

With this in mind and with my new role allowing me time to observe, we came up with a sequential set of questions.

1.    Did we observe the player hustle?
a.    This can be off the bus, on the sidelines, or in the game.
2.    Did we observe the player exhibit team first behaviors?
a.    This can be off the bus, on the sidelines, or in the game.
3.    Did we observe that the player remain centered and able to communicate during the competition?
4.    Did we observe the players performance in the game/match?

Each column has room for three answers:  + for a yes, 0 for a no we did not observe, and – for we observed the player do the opposite of our desired outcome.

Any parent or coach could observe a competition and use this template. What we noticed in using the form is that it really helps us coach the next practice. We are quickly able to recall the moment and the teaching concept that can be brought to the next practice. We can praise the player for the positive and share our observations and offer instruction to develop the spots that need to improve.

As with most of our templates, they evolve over time, so please use it to improve it and we welcome your feedback.

Looking ahead to the summer we hope that you will take joy in encouraging those around you to offer up their maximum effort and that your slow and generous observation eye is in use as you lead your teams. 

Take a closer look at some more in this theme in our post "Is There an Advantage in Your Disadvantage?"

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