Communicating with Coaches [NIAAA]

By: Bailey Jackson, CMAA - Clover High School

For the past 18 years, I have been involved with athletic and school administration in the largest classification in South Carolina. Over that time, I have gone from inexperienced to experienced and from one of the youngest to one of the oldest in a room full of athletic directors.

When I was just starting out as a young, inexperienced athletic director after teaching history in a classroom for 11 years, I had an experienced athletic director tell me that AD stood for "All Day and After Dark." I quickly found out that he was right.

The demands placed on an athletic director can be overwhelming, but I believe that at the center of a successful athletic director (and a less overwhelmed one) lies strong communication, mainly with your coaching staff. Ideas that help with managing the various job responsibilities, including communication, can be extremely helpful.

Coaches always use the phrase "a chain is only as strong as its weakest link." The same holds true of any organization and the people that make up the links of the chain. I didn’t invent any of the following concepts, but instead use these tools yearly, monthly, weekly, and daily to manage one of the largest athletic departments in our state.

Job Responsibilities and Expectations

When I was growing up and working part-time jobs in high school or college, I performed at a higher level and did a much better job when I knew what was expected of me. I try to use that same philosophy and approach with the coaches that work with me daily. The annual preseason head coaches meeting lays out the departmental expectations. Each summer, I reinforce, with our head coaches how we want to operate as a department to get the most out of our programs.

Since the information can be redundant for some of our coaches, I always try to offer something new or a different approach to an everyday situation. Items such as student safety, encouraging multi-sport participation, cooperation between programs, and creating school pride by supporting each other are covered each year and on a short list of my non-negotiables. The different approach or new concept may be as simple as something I learned at a conference, from another athletic director, or something I read over the summer.

After the initial coaches meeting, I meet with each head coach individually to go over their specific job description. We discuss the specific objectives and process for their season end evaluation. The head coaches then meet with the assistant coaches to share the information presented in the annual meeting and discuss specific responsibilities and expectations for each assistant. I want our head coaches to take ownership of their programs and lead the assistants. I firmly believe in letting each head coach manage their own programs within the parameters set by our school board, district, and administrative team and consistently communicate this message to them.

Answering Questions - Even Before They Are Asked

With the other various demands of being an athletic director, I try to provide a place where coaches can get their questions answered before contacting me. You may say, "But you said communication was the key – if you don’t want questions sent to you, how are you promoting communication?" It is a fair question. Let me explain.

All of us have web-based tools that we use to store documents, materials, etc. In many situations, the manilla folder has been replaced with a folder in the Google Drive, within Canvas, or via some other sharing tool provided by your school. A few years ago, I created a "head coaches" folder and shared it digitally with each head coach. The folder is a form of good communication but can also limit the phone calls, texts, or emails that already make up a large part of the day of an athletic director.

The following is just a few examples of what is included in our school’s head coaches folder: the state association handbook, conference handbook, instructions for online athlete registration, the state’s adopted physical form, the head coaches meeting presentation, head coach evaluation form, assistant coach evaluation form, our school’s athletic booster club by-laws, and many more. These documents answer questions that coaches may have before they even ask them. I am sure that I am not the first athletic director to use this, but this one simple tool has been one of the most helpful additions to our athletic department and takes very little time and effort to create when compared to the benefits.

Check and double-check schedules…spreadsheets make it easier!

Most athletic directors have received that phone call from an administrator asking "which group was in the gym last night" or the call asking if the football stadium is available for a community event on a certain date. Spreadsheets that are shared with coaches can provide an immediate answer to those questions and serve as a great tool for horizontal communication between coaches and vertical communication between the athletic director, administration, and coaches.

Each season, and as coaches begin to work on schedules for the next year, I create master spreadsheets for the entire season. Those master sheets have every single day/date of the season listed from the start of practice through the end of the playoff season. Not only can we use it during the season to schedule practice times and facilities for each group, but we also use it as the place to add contests being scheduled with other schools. I encourage our coaches to use this as the place to enter contests being scheduled. Even when they send me a schedule in a word document, I ask them, "has this all been entered in the master spreadsheet?" This master spreadsheet for each season gives coaches a place to see in real-time what dates are available at certain facilities being used, and it also allows me to open one document to see the entire season of activities being scheduled by our coaches.

I can address any conflicts with scheduling and schedule space for groups outside of athletics that put in requests to use one of our facilities. This initial spreadsheet creates a snapshot of dates, times, and facilities available. Throughout the season, our coaches communicate with each other to add practice times and work together to prevent conflicts. In addition, I can easily answer questions on which group was in what space and when.

From the initial "master" spreadsheet, I enter contests in our web-based scheduling program that generates team schedules for our athletic website. I can also use the master schedule to create weekly reminder emails to make sure we are all on the same page for the upcoming athletic events and trips. I originally created the reminder emails to help myself on a weekly basis, but now administrators, coaches, secretaries, game workers, and others have come to expect a weekly update. In the event I have not sent out the next week’s schedule by Friday, I have people texting or emailing wanting to know when I plan to send it.

As I previously stated, I didn’t invent or create any of these tools I use daily to help me manage an athletic department with so many moving parts. I do, however, believe that incorporating these techniques will improve communication in any school’s athletic department and reduce the possibilities of issues that can arise from poor communication.