OST Head Coach Bamm’s Reflection

Recently OST Coach Bamm attended a training hosted by Philadelphia Youth Sports Collaborative at the Starfinder Foundation. 

Trainers from the Center of Healing and Justice through Sport taught coaches how to implement principles of Healing-Centered Sport in their approach to coaching youth.

Bamm is one of 14 coaches at our 7 OST schools led by OST Director Christian Bailey.

Here is his reflection:

The training on Sunday was called "Switch The Pitch" and was a good experience to learn various educational tools to engage your players on the pitch. It was geared to mental and physical attributes. 

The coaching session was run by Armond Richards, the first activity was a mental pattern drill. We would pair up and two and have to count to 3. So for example i say 1, my partner says 2, i say 3, she say 1 then i say 2 and keep going until we mess up the pattern. Soccer is a repetitive game where you have to be focused and constant. The progression from that was to do a hand motion for the numbers. So for example i would clap for 1, my partner thumbs up for 2, i would raise the roof motion for 3, and then my partner would clap for 1, i would thumbs up for 2, my partner would raise the roof for 3. It was a great mental warm up by having us focus on little details before we got into the soccer drills to start practice. 

I learned some great mental and physical activities for how to instruct my soccer practices. from different variations of passing and first touch drills we did. We also talked about being a "high five bandit". We as coaches are so geared sometimes to que the mistakes the players make and triumph the goal scoring and winning. For example, a player passes the ball when he sees another player open. If you know that a player is usually the person to score and the pass, give them a high five. If you ask players to clean up and they do in an orderly fashion give out more high fives. Players engage in the games you play at practice even the ones who didn't win but gave great effort give them all high fives.  

There were 6 of us involved. We had two coaches from "Safe Hub''. Sports coordinator from "Starfinder". A coach from "Phila Youth Sports". A former soccer player also. 

Armond Richards talked a lot in the beginning about the frontal cortex of the brain, which controls memory, emotions, impulse control, problem solving, social interaction, and motor function. He gave us drills to engage these parts during training. 

I was a high five bandit at practice today for my 1st-2nd grade group today. Tomorrow I plan on breaking out the mental drills for my 3rd-5th grade group to test their memory and it's also a way to calm the kids down from being rowdy after school and get them focused before the physical training starts. I will implement the 3 person p[assing drill Armond taught us as well. Which gave me great insight on how to teach the kids soft touch and better passing and still engages 3 players at a time and keeps them focused on one objective. 

I'm a coach who heavily relies on the player/coach rule of thumb. For every hour your players train, you should spend those exact hours studying. For example total of 2 hours roughly I trained my OST players, so i will be spending 2 hours tonight studying rather its youtube training videos, books on teaching, management, or coaching. I will constantly be fueling my brain so I can fuel my players' physical output on the pitch.