Participating in youth athletics is about more than just sports. Athletics are about helping kids develop new skills and confidence. Sports help kids learn to communicate with their peers and learn about teamwork. They can help spark new friendships and teach valuable lessons about learning to work with various types of people. Athletics can provide an opportunity to find a new mentor in a coach, and learn to trust their team.
Youth sports can also benefit adults. Athletics can spark new friendships amongst parents as they bond sitting in the stands together for an entire season. They can help parents develop a respectful relationship with coaches, and provide an opportunity for adults to set a good example for their kids about how to keep a positive and respectful attitude when winning or losing.
Sports bring people of all ages and all backgrounds together and can create a strong community of players, coaches and parents on teams that have strong leadership, invested families and access to the right tools.
One tool that can help build a community is player evaluation software. Find out how using the app can help your team better connect to players and their parents.
Sports bring people of all ages and all backgrounds together and can create a strong community of players, coaches and parents on teams that have strong leadership, invested families and access to the right tools. #youthsports #community [Click to Tweet!]
Add player photos
Player evaluation apps, like the TeamGenius app, allow administrators of the platform to insert athlete photos. While adding a player photo to an athlete’s profile in the app might seem like a small gesture, it can go a long way. That player now has a face in the system. When coaches, directors and evaluators are looking at the athlete’s results and stats, they are now looking at a photo of him or her so they are seeing an actual person. It helps those who use the app to start to put a face to a name, which will help coaches and directors recognize and feel connected to the athlete more quickly.
Make player evaluation forms available to parents and players
Transparency can help build trust between coaches, directors, players and their parents. One way to achieve this during the tryouts process is to share athlete results with parents and players so they can see exactly how an athlete was scored during the tryout session. Evaluation apps provide athlete results in real-time. This allows coaches and directors to send athlete results to players at the conclusion of the session. Parents and players don’t have to guess how evaluators scored them on a particular skill – they can see for themselves after the session. They also know exactly what scores the league administrators will use to rank the player when forming teams. This can help alleviate any perceived biases in the tryouts sessions by making the forms available to the parents and athletes. Click here for additional tips on removing bias from your next tryout.
Email results and team placements
Evaluation apps like TeamGenius’ are built with tools that allow coaches and directors to easily communicate with parents and players. This helps coaches and directors interact with families one-on-one. Instead of sending a mass email to a group of tryout participants to reveal team placements, coaches can send individual player results and team information to each athlete and his or her parents. This not only makes the communication much more personal, it also helps build a relationship between the coaching staff and the players. This initial email can spark lines of communication between team members and coaches. Players and parents can respond to the coach’s note that accompanies tryouts results, and it gives the coach a chance to either email the family back, or schedule a meeting to address any questions and concerns.
Analytics and player rankings
Discussions and honest feedback can help build a community atmosphere within a team. Evaluation app tools like analytics and player rankings can help with these conversations. Evaluation apps can track athlete tryout scores and coaching comments from throughout the season. The apps also provide instant player rankings as scores are entered during evaluation sessions. Having coaching comments, player scores and rankings on hand can help coaches and directors when having one-on-one conversations with parents and players. These stats can help coaches explain team placements in a very candid manner by looking at the player’s overall ranking. They can also be helpful during player evaluations at the end of the season when coaches are giving tips to athletes about what to work on for next year. Seeing their initial evaluation results and comments, in addition to the player rankings, can help the coach customize an off-season plan for the player.
