CYO

WELCOME TO OUR “COACHES TOOLBOX” PAGE

After 27 years as the head football coach at Roncalli High School in Indianapolis, I retired from coaching high school sports in the spring of 2017 to become the Executive Director of the CYO of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis. Although I am no longer coaching high school athletes, I am still extremely interested in the coaching profession! In my CYO position, I now oversee thousands of youth coaches in 9 sports for both boys and girls, and we serve over 16,000 young athletes!

I believe now more than ever that coaches are a huge key to the development of our youth and in turn play a substantial role in the future of our great country! Because of this, I am extremely passionate about doing all I can to help build “transformational” coaches who will make a real impact in the lives of our youth. The saying “a good coach improves a player’s game; a great coach improves a player’s life” describes this concept of transformational coaching quite well!

No principal at any school in the country would send their teachers into the classroom at the beginning of the year without some type of training and the appropriate tools (textbooks, workbooks, teacher’s desk, chalkboard, etc.). However, every year youth coaches jump into the fray with little to no training and with limited “tools” to do their job. This page is designed to provide some of these tools to help more coaches become transformational in their approach.

In the next section, you will find a piece titled “THE ESSENCE OF COACHING.” I would highly recommend taking a couple minutes to read it, as I think it will be thought provoking and will give some guidance in what it means to be a transformational coach. This section also includes a short “SELF TEST” with questions that will help you determine where you are right now in your current approach to coaching. Next you will find a “POST-VIDEO QUESTIONS” sheet that will help process information from the Coaching For Christ video. This might be a very useful tool for athletic directors who are watching the video with their coaches to be answered after watching the video. Finally, you will find in this section a “GUIDE TO HELP TEACH KIDS HOW TO PRAY.”

Coaching Tools

POST-VIDEO DISCUSSION SHEET

COACHES SELF TEST

A GUIDE TO TEACHING KIDS HOW TO PRAY

FIVE GREAT TRANSFORMATIONAL TEAM ACTIVITIES

The last section has several lessons that coaches can print off and use as weekly “themes of the week.” These pieces each have some kind of story or poem that helps to emphasize a teaching point or virtue. (After each lesson, there are a series of questions you can ask your players to get them to contemplate and put into words thoughts about the topic that week, and how the topic applies to them and the team at the current time.) When I was coaching H.S. football, I would introduce these concepts to the kids in the locker room on Monday before we took the practice field that day, and I would read the story or poem to the team. I would then have each of our position coaches ask the questions at the bottom of the page to their position players some time during that week. Either they could meet with them as a group and go over the questions, or they could catch each of their players 1 on 1 as they were walking out to practice, or back in, or any other time when they could find a few minutes to mentor them 1 on 1. These 1 on 1 sessions are a great way for coaches to bond with their position players and create a strong sense of trust between player and coach! It is a great way to show your players you really care about them! Below is a list of lessons from which to choose. I will be adding lessons to the list each month.