Ian Goldberg is the Founder and CEO of iSport360, Inc. a SportsTech venture that helps youth sport coaches and parents share objective player feedback. As a sport parent and coach, Ian has witnessed the chaos on the sidelines and in the bleachers when coaches’ and parents’ expectations are not aligned….and the kids suffer. His company has developed a solution to the pain in the form of an app and an informative (and frequently humorous) newsletter “The Chaotic World of Youth Sports”.
Ongoing feedback is way more effective than end-of-the-year feedback
Regular feedback is important, but can be time-consuming. Ideally coaches should be able to spend a few minutes and quickly evaluate and provide feedback to all players
Objective goals
It’s easy to just look at how many points/goals players score, but most coaches are trying to evaluate many things beyond just scoring. The key is to define measurable objectives of what you are trying to improve in players.
Empowering kids
Ideally kids should be able to:
Talk to the coaches themselves
Set their own goals
What happens in a parents’ brain when watching their kids play sports
Fight or flight mode – Parents’ stress levels and cortisol levels are skyrocketing when being on the sideline watching their kids
Parents are either part of your process or part of your problem
Involve them – they want to know what’s going on, regardless of age
A good way to base how much parents are involved – how much money they are spending. So for cheap low-level rec sports, not as much. For high-level travel teams costing thousands of dollars – the parents should be communicated with more.
iSport360 – The feedback loop
Mobile app – Coaches can work with players to set goals at beginning of season and allows the coach to provide feedback
Parents can also send other players on the team positive emojis
Weekly newsletter with funny stories
Best Stolen Idea
Barbara Corcoran from the Shark Tank: ‘To be successful, you have to have a certain level of stupidity, so that when you keep getting knocked down, you continuously get back up, expecting better results.’
Parting Advice
Don’t let sports take over your life. Enjoy it and keep it in perspective.
—
Reviews are the lifeblood of the podcast!- If you like the podcast- please take 2 minutes to write a review! Click here
–
Ready to be an Awesome Youth Coach? Sign up for our free weekly newsletter:
Coach Kav owns a sports performance facility called The Sport and Speed Institute. On top of that he runs NFL Combine Programs and All-American Football Camps every year, and just published a #1 bestselling book on Amazon.
Remember what you want them to work on is what they are most insecure about, so be strategic about how you approach it
Trust
The key is building trust, the kids will know when you don’t truly have their best interest in mind
Practice design
Teach and deconstruct a skill
Compete. There needs to be a winner and a loser. Positive conditioning- the winners get to do additional workouts. But at the youth level, this takes the right situation
Make sure you’re not just teaching a skill and doing a drill for 10 minutes – you have to keep reinforcing what you teach continuously throughout that practice and throughout the season
Try not to use the term ‘suicides’ for running. Powerful word that should not be used in this context.
Auditory reactionary drill
Two lines in a relay race – have multiple cones – you stand behind them and call which cone they have to go around (#1,2,or 3). This also helps you balance the teams so you don’t have to worry about evening up the teams.
Also can reward the team that has better team spirit
Good practice games
Tic tac toe – 2 teams – throw cones/pinnies in a square
Tag – great competition/conditioning game with lots of cutting. You can add a cognitive element – give everyone a number – then use math to call out the numbers of who is ‘it’
4 things every parent can do with their kid to prepare them for life:
Read
Learn a 2nd language
Play an instrument
Play a team sport
Favorite books/quotes
Quote: ‘Character strong as steel won’t develop with skin smooth as silk’
John Moyer is a current teacher at Stow-Munroe Falls High School, where he has taught since 1990. John is certified coach in Resilient Leadership, based in the Washington DC area. John currently is employed by the Stow City School District as their District Leadership Coach, where he helps teachers, coaches and administrators become more effective leaders.
If you have established your guiding principles, it greatly increases your ability to calmly think through and stay focused on what’s important
Overfunctioning=Underfunctioning
When one overfunctions, there is a reciprocal reaction of underfunctioning
The best balance for a coach is to be there to be a calm presence in a storm, but not overreact to negative situations that will occur in every game
A child-focused society
If a parent over-focuses on their children, the child is worse off
As a coach- do your coaching well, but think less about it.
Game theory – There is a fear our kid/team will get behind if someone else practices more or plays on more travel teams.
A 2 person relationship is inherently unstable. For parents – it is far easier for them to talk about their kids than it it is to talk about their own relationship.
Connecting with and impacting kids
John works with kids to help them start establishing who they are and identifying their self
The One that Got Away
In John’s senior year, he played against a tackle that went on to be an all-pro center. John got worked over pretty bad by this guy, but he learned resilience and knew to focus on process over outcome.
