Checkout Chase Parnell’s blog “Run Until I Die.” As he puts it, “Running gear reviews, race reports, general training/fitness information, interviews and my spontaneous epiphanies…”

Going into my 10th year as a high school head coach I’ve got three simple pieces of advice for coaches that will make life much easier and the coaching experience a more rewarding one.

1 Find a mentor
Being a head coach is basically being the boss. It’s like being the team CEO or the pastor of a church. Sure you have people to answer to, but you can put yourself on a bit of an island.

The amazing thing about finding a great coach to mentor you is that if they’re a “great coach” than they’re going to make an incredible mentor.

I’ve been blessed with several great coach mentors and to my surprise have done mentoring of my own along the way.

2 Write it down
You’ll never say, “I wish I hadn’t written that down.” But guaranteed you’ll have things you’ll kick yourself for not having put on paper.

Keep a notebook with you for the entire season.

What you should have in the notebook:
• Contact info
– Having all the phone numbers and e-mail addresses that pertain to your players, their parents, your administration and other coaches makes life much simpler.
• Schedule
– The easiest way to answer a scheduling question is to have a schedule on you.
• Team rules
– Having these available saves you the hassle and embarrassment of seeming like you are making it up as you go along. It’s much easier to say, “That’s not how it works on this team… see it’s written right here.”
• Document incidents
– If something goes wrong, right it down. Do your “due diligence” and document that. This will save you a lot of grief.

3 Communicate
Coaching is communicating.

Here’s who you need to communicate with:
• Players
– If you can’t communicate with your players… you can’t coach. It’s that simple.
• Parents
– The better you communicate with the parents in your program, the easier your life will be.
• Your athletic department
– The number one thing your athletic department is going to want from you is to know what is going on. If you don’t tell them, they can’t know and that makes them look bad, which in turn is not good for you. Your Athletic Director and Athletic secretary are valuable resources and you should consider them as your closes allies you want to keep in the loop.
• Your administration
– Your administration shares something huge with you… they want your kids to succeed. So let them know when your players have succeeded. They also want to keep those kids on the right path. So let them know when you have an athlete who might be getting off of that path.
• Fellow coaches
- Coaches of your sport at other schools. Having other coaches numbers on your cell phone sure makes life easier. You’ll find that this group can really become your closest community because you share the same interest.
- Coaches of other sports at your school. This group is not your competition. You are working with the same kids and the better you can communicate with them, the better it is for the kids. The goal should be to have “multi-sport” athletes, who don’t feel like they have to pick just one sport to play.
• The media
– OK, this isn’t the Pros, you probably aren’t going to be having press conferences, but you are going to be communicating with the media. Keep this in mind, the better you communicate with them, the better they can communicate about your team. When parents are upset that little Bobby’s school-record setting performance wasn’t in the local newspaper, it’s not the newspapers fault if you didn’t make sure they knew the details.

I had the good pleasure of hearing Bruce Brown (of Proactive Coaching) speak recently at Summit High School in Bend. If you are a coach, you need to know who Bruce Brown is. He is a traveling speaker and author on the subject of coaching sports… and he knows what he is talking about.

A friend of mine played for him and assures me that he is the real deal and what he presents is backed up by his years of coaching and shaping countless young people’s lives. I was really impressed with what I heard him say.

This wasn’t Brown’s first time speaking in Central Oregon, and I’m sure it won’t be his last. You really should catch him next time he does.