Developing and Protecting Your Team's Image

 We are in a tug of war battle with our traditions and our newly found acceptance with the general public. In the 'old days' we were a fringe sport played mostly by a motley group of characters and funny talkers from all walks of life. We toiled away on fields outside cities with only a few close friends and family members as spectators. Rugby and the general public only mixed at socials and often was met by equal parts amusement and that feeling you get when you pass a car wreck and can't look away. We were an early version of extreme athletes and we lived our lives that way. Now, teams have large corporations as sponsors, our college rugby has TV time, and in some cases TV money, and the youth game is exploding with parents choosing it over football. All of this is causing the traditions us old boys enjoyed to be scrubbed from our sport and replaced with a sterile 'professional' environment. Heck, even our songs aren't safe!

Good.

Now, I don't want to see the entire social aspect of rugby wiped away because it is as important to the game as the ball we play with. It's what separates and makes us better people than football and soccer players. We are a united band of brothers and sisters who battle against each other for 80 minutes and then celebrate the effort put forth by everyone after regardless of team affiliation. But we have to be honest with ourselves now, our traditions are our hurting us.

We are at a critical point in our development as a rugby nation. Our national teams are starting to produce talent and wins, clubs are aligning themselves for a possible jump to a pro operation and the college game is the strongest and most marketable it has ever been. As the spotlight of the general public interest begins to acknowledge and accept our sport we need to be conscious of our image and how we as athletes, coaches and administrators are perceived by outsiders while we are in the glare of that light. This is the most important part of that last sentence and what this blog is about:

WE HAVE TO BE CONSCIOUS OF OUR IMAGE

For me personally, it is one of my greatest fears to be a head coach of a college program left to answer questions for actions and negative consequences of a decision making process I was not involved in. I have watched from a distance learning, both what and what not to do, as other coaches have gone through the process of defending their sports, culture and players against the stigma that Delaware 'I'm schmacked' party or the Virginia Tech hazing suspension,  but I have had experiences with minor incidences and many close calls on bigger issues. It is my hope the content that you read below can save you, or a the very least help you manage, a  PR nightmare.

Let us start by debunking some common phrases used by players (even some coaches) to justify questionable actions:

"I pay dues, I can do what I want"- I'm going to stop you right there. No you can't 'do what you want'. With that logic you should be able to stop an officer from giving you a ticket because you pay your taxes (those are your dues to be an American) and those taxes pay that officer's wages. Sounds pretty stupid right? That is what you sound like when you say it. When you pay your dues you are entering into a social contract to conduct yourself within the standard set by your team. These standards should be explained to you (or better yet, presented in a handbook and/or displayed around your club) when you join the team. It's often why clubs allow you to play a few games before you pay anything, so you understand what their expectations are. Just because you pay into a program doesn't mean you can disgrace it, that isn't doing what you want but in fact its you being an asshole and hurting the reputation of an organization that was there before you and will be there after.

"It was us as individuals, not a team thing."- One of the great things about team sports is the idea of surrendering the 'I' for the betterment of the 'We'. Now, while you are out in public by yourself you are John or Jane Doe and an individual but the instant that you are joined by a team mate you give up that individual identity and become a group with an identity found by a common interest, in this case rugby. People call this association. So, when you two posed for a calendar, host a party, steal something, etc and then attempt to excuse your actions as not being a 'rugby thing' your common link of being team mates will ALWAYS make it a rugby thing despite your best efforts to justify it otherwise. You don't believe me? Why don't you ask the Minnesota Vikings PR department if they enjoy the association to the Love Boat Scandal or the Caroline Panthers being associated to Greg Hardy's domestic abuse case. The proof that association is a thing is literally in the headlines. This childish, immature thought process is more often than not the reason for stupid things happening.

"It is tradition"- Look at your Facebook news feed. Do you notice anything? I do, puppy and baby pictures have been replaced by people using social media as a megaphone to tell you what they are offended by. These people are your friends who you share some kind of positive connection with. Now think about your team's traditions, would they offend your friends? How about your parents? If the school found out how would they respond? Has this tradition got your team into hot water before?
If you answered yes to even one of those is that tradition a benefit to your team culture or a danger to it? The great thing about traditions are they are only as long lasting as your team's collective memory so they can be changed. "It's tradition" is the sport equivalent of "We've always done it this way" in the business world. If you believe that both of those statements justify not changing a dangerous or poor practice then you're going to lose more than just that one 'tradition'.

I would encourage you to talk to your leaders, captains, and entire team about these sayings. Trust me, I've heard all of these as justification for an action and once that person did some self exploration they realized that those statements are just away to pretend they aren't guilty of some kind of wrong doing. Create an up-front contact with them that saying these 3 phrases isn't OK and if anyone says them it should be discussed further if it is in fact going to hurt your club.

Now let's look at some preventive measures:

Find an ally within an institution- We as rugby people have a belief that it is "us v them". You see/hear it all the time "The school hates us.." or "We aren't looked at as a serious team because...". While I understand in most cases the people saying these phrases aren't the cause for the poor perception and you shouldn't accept this as a problem you created, but instead as a mean to the solution. You, as the coach, can be the school's best resource to help them avoid a PR nightmare and you need to sell yourself as such. A simple E-mail introduction of yourself, acknowledgement of previous problems, your solutions on how to fix them and an olive branch of an offer to  be partners in helping develop these young men and keep them out of trouble can go a long way. Find out who your players answer to and that is the person you should be contacting.

A coach is always under the scrutiny of association- This one I've learned the hard way. As coaches, our actions are always going to be under a microscope regardless if we are on the sidelines or in a bar with our buddies. When you become a coach you give up that individual title and become apart of the organization you work for. I'm no longer just 'Brandon Sparks' but I'm Brandon Sparks, head coach of University of Michigan'. I know the standards set by the university and I hold myself accountable to them the same way a varsity coach would. Why? Because, I don't want to embarrass my team, myself, or my family and I sure don't want to play into the stereotypical image of the rugby culture. I also want to be a role model for my players because it sends a poor message to be the coach that doesn't practice what he preaches.

Create a social media policy- The world is incredibly smaller than it was 10 years ago with things like Instagram, SnapChat, Twitter, Facebook, etc. We as coaches are faced with problems our coaches would have never thought of by dealing with technology we barely understand. These outlets are also where many problems arise from. Below is a practice I've taken from the business world and applied to teams I work with, a social media policy:

Players often don't understand the danger social media presents to themselves and their squad. This simple one page documents sets out a guideline to help protect the image of your club. To help with the buy-in rate encourage them to be a part of the set-up. Also, encourage an open discussion with them about positive and negative effects that social media can have on your team.


Be a sounding board for your team- We know that these kids aren't perfect and they are going to make mistakes, heck we have made plenty ourselves when we were that age. We also might have be involved in an incident that hurt our own rugby club. Don't be afraid to share those experiences and invite players to talk to you about possible decisions that could hurt their club. Good leaders are easy to relate with and approachable, but you need to show that side to your players first. They should also remember that the decisions they make away from you also directly affects your image.

I know in my own situations this is a tough issue to control. Emotionally I'm torn because of the nostalgic emotions that are created by my memories of my playing days but on the flip side as a professional coach I understand the changes that must occur in not just my own thinking but ours as a whole rugby community to progress this game. Do you agree with the ideas I shared? Do you have one of your own that I missed? Please share because

5 Things I Learned Inside a High Performance Enviroment

This past summer was spent traveling to one high performance camp to another for USA Rugby. This is now my third year in side the HP Program so I'm starting to feel I've become a seasoned pro at sleeping on dorm style twin beds, over-eating cafeteria food, and adapting to coaching in this unique environment. Below are five things I've learned in my experience of being an assistant coach at these events as well as being a head coach of an age grade program. I've taken these lessons and applied them to my current coaching position which has made for a positive experience for everyone involved. 

Do you agree with me? What have you learned? Please take the time to comment below...

1. People love meetings, but you don't have to love them
If you've worked in a professional environment you no doubt have been stuck in a room with a whiteboard asking yourself why couldn't we have just written an E-mail about this? 

We've been there bro...

Rugby suffers from this same abuse of meetings too.

What I learned was less is more when you're thinking about holding a meeting.

You can cut out a lot of leg work in your build-up to an event with presentations or well written emails. This serves two purposes; 1. It cuts out your needed meeting time and work to be done on the ground, 2. Once you ask the first question you will know immediately who has done their homework and shown up prepared.

Now, I'm not saying ALL meetings should be done away with I'm just saying most of them should be.

Acceptable Meetings:
- Med check
- Selection
- Pre/post game coaches talk
- 1 on 1's
- Morning team meetings to outline agendas

Unacceptable Meetings:
- Meetings to plan PowerPoint's
- Meetings to plan future meetings
- Any meeting longer than an hour
- A meeting without an agenda and set start and end time
- 'Group-think' meetings

A final note on meetings, make sure if you're the one running the meeting you aren't wasting your time or the participants. You wouldn't go to practice without a plan so why should you go to a meeting without one? Respect yours and others time. Be quick, direct, and prompt.

100% right

2. Trust your assistant coaches

If you are assigned to, or assigned, a group of coaches you need to trust them and their abilities. They, just like you, are there for reason and you need to get comfortable with the idea of prioritizing and delegating to free up your time to focus on what is important. You want to be a leader not a boss give them the room to coach to their strengths (maybe your weakness) and focus on your role.

Trust them...

Take a second and think about your conduct during a training session, now ask yourself a few questions; 

1. If you aren't the lead coach during an activity, who is? 
2. How often do you add "and another thing..." after they are done giving their coaching points? 
3. When they present something to you do you often add "Well, this is how I do it.." without asking why they want to do it their way?

If you can answer yes to 2 or more of those questions you might be undermining your assistant coaches authority with the team. That doesn't mean you should let the pirates sail the ship, but be tactful on how you approach the subject of skill improvement with them and do it AWAY from the team. A simple one on one meeting to discuss your expectations will do more for the coaches development, and respect from the team, than constantly talking over them in a coaching session.

3. Less is more which also leads to less stress

This is less equals more for the math challenged

This is particularly important in an HP environment. You're not with your club team anymore where you have to spend hours hammering away at the fundamentals and game understanding. These athletes that are either on the team or at a camp already have a strong grasp on their fundamentals and game situations so instead turn your focus to improving the individual skills (before and during training, never after) and stretching your own understanding and expectations of the game for both coaches and players.

You are dealing with the 1% in terms of athletic ability, try something new with that will challenge their abilities and stretch the limits of your system.

4. Speak less, listen more
This is especially important during meeting with other coaches. You are surrounded by some of the best minds in the game and their collective knowledge is greater than any website, YouTube clip, or book.

So shut up and listen.


You don't need to prove you belong by yammering on or tacking on comments after a point has been made. What you need to do is take notes about what other people are doing on topics that will make you and your club better. opportunities like these to learn don't happen very often, seize it by shutting your mouth and opening your ears.


5. Prepare for some haters and trolls
One thing I wasn't prepared for when I was the interim head coach for the 7s program was the backlash from trolls on the internet.  What really pissed me off was it came from some people I

Mouth breathing is one sign of troll-ism

consider friends and role models.

The lesson I took away is you need to have thick skin to coach at any level, but you need to have tank armor thick skin when you get to the next level of coaching. People are entitled to their opinions, but you need to understand that those opinions are made up from snapshots (games/press releases on selections/etc) taken from one brief moment in a very long process only you, the staff and team have experienced. 

Have faith in what you're doing and don't be afraid of possible failure. You're in that position for a reason so act like it. Find a someone who will keep you grounded and remind you in those moments of weakness that you are capable of doing it and LISTEN to them. In the end the worst that could happen is you're bad at it, which will only serve a greater purpose of teaching you what you need to improve on.

Last piece of advice on this topic, like and re-tweet every post about you...

Thriller Hands!!! A Dynamic Way to Receive a Pass

The Overview:

Exhibit A

What does the 1982 hit "Thriller" and catching a rugby ball have in common. Its all about the layered hands or, the thiller hands! One of the most iconic moments in the music video is when MJ and his zombie dancers throw their hands out to the side and shimmy to the left before coming back to right, here. This small movement in a very large video gives you the tools to help explain the concept of layered hands while receiving a pass by giving the technique a pop culture reference.  The pop culture reference is important because it breaks up the normal pattern of learning by adding entertainment value which will help with skill retention. 

Exhibit B

Exhibit C

This isn't the only way to catch a pass either, its just another way. The old tried and true methods like the 'W', as illustrated by RZA from the Wu-Tang Clan here, or the 'Diamond" as shown by pro wrestler turned master yogi Diamond Dallas Page. Both of these techniques still have a place in the game, especially at youth level, and should be coached to new players and practiced until mastered. The thriller hands are great for experience players who might be hitting a plateau in their development or for back line players who's attack systems are designed around getting the ball out fast. It should be taught to the whole squad as well since it will help forwards who find themselves in space to become more of a threat. Regardless of how you coach it just make sure you're coaching it. To many of us focus on passing the ball and pay very little attention to the process of catching it.

The Goal:

Create a quick transferable ball by positioning hands to make a pass before the reception.

The Concept:

The concept behind the thriller hands is to have the player's hands position to quickly receive and distribute the ball without having to waste time re-gripping for proper hand placement. Following the three panel sequence of photos we can break down the process...

***The pass is coming from the photos left side and being passed to the right***

#1- Position your power hand (hand at the back of the ball) in front of the guide hand (hand at the front of the ball). keep them open and pointed towards the player passing the ball.

#2- Catch the ball with your fingertips. The ball should be landing in your hands in such a matter that you should be able to transfer it quickly across the body with minimal hand movement to make the pass. 

#3- You should be transferring the ball  quickly across the body and firing it into a pass with fingers pointed at your target.

Looking at the hands from the passer perspective

Focus on these key factors:

Izzy's thriller hands

1. Are the catching the ball and bringing it straight across the body? No dip?

2. How much is the ball moving in the transfer? Are they struggling to get a handle on it?

3. Are the passing leaving their hands ugly? If so, it could be a problem in their passing process.

There is tons of room in how you want to coach this to your players. Don't move on until they have mastered those 3 key area and once they do start looking at moving the back hand closer/farther. Also, what should the feet be doing? How about the eyes immediately after the catch? 

What do you think about the thriller hands? Will it help or hurt your players? I would love to hear your comments below.

Continuous Passing

*This drill is designed to be a skill developer and/or a assessment tool*

Preview:
This activity is designed to help develop varying passing skills during fatigue state.

Coaching Points:
- Fundamental passing technique 
- Footwork
- Receiving hands (both passer and receivers)
- Smart communication

Needs:
- 3 players
- 4 cones
- 1 ball
- Timer

Set-up:
- The vertical cones (running cones) should be spaced 10-15m apart
- Cones making up the horizontal line (passing cones) should be offset so one is 5m from the running cones while the other is 10-15m depending on skill level
- Place on player on each of the passing cones to be passer/receiver
- One player running between the running cones

Action:
- Designate time (i.e. 1-2 minute each player)
- One player works between the two running cones at pace
- 2 players work the short and long pass to runner


Adjustments/build-up:
- Receivers on passing cones have to do burpees, sit-ups, etc
- Lengthen running line and add more passing cones

Defining Role Responsibility and Time Truths as a Specialist Coach

This essay is a reflection back on the time spent in USA Rugby’s Elite Coach Development Program (ECDP) and two lessons I took away from the week long National All Star Camp (NASC) that helped develop me as both a head coach and assistant coach.

Since England and Clive Woodward won the 2003 world cup specialized coaches have become commonplace on club and international staffs. The days of 2-3 coaches operating in the traditional head coach, forward coach, and backs coach role are quickly disappearing in favor of 5-6 coaches with new titles like skills coach, point of contact coach, or attack coach. In this essay I will share with you two personal learning experiences of mine as a  specialist coach. These two experiences will focus on the need for clearly defined roles and the issue of time management when coaching a specialty area. These areas are often points of contention on my own staff as well as others around the world and it is my hope that my experience can help others with the same issues.

 I entered the 2015 NASC camp in a familiar role as assistant coach. For the previous two years I found myself working with the backline for the CAAs and again would be filling the role for one of the two college teams at this camp. An added bonus this year was I would be tasked with coaching the attack for the squad making this my specialist area. As I mentioned above the two learning experiences that I would like to share will focus around my role as the attack coach and the need for time management and defined roles by using my background in both business and rugby.

What’s my job as the attack coach?

How would you define it as besides making sure the team scores enough to win? What responsibilities are associated with it? These are all questions I had for myself. The learning experience here is the same lesson I had when I was hiring employees for a company, the need for a job description. Just like you wouldn't take a job without knowing your responsibilities so why should you coach something without knowing your parameters? A job description for a specialist coach should be an up-front contract and cover 5 key elements;

1. The purpose of the position
2. Expected outcomes of the role
3. What input the other support staff will have in systems, patterns, etc.
4. Expected time and tools to perform role
5. How much input will be given by the head coach

By creating a description of the specialist coach role you are giving you and your staff a point of reference to work from on any decision that will need to be made now or in the future. These should also be flexible so it can change with the game and your staff and constantly be reviewed.

The Time Truth of a Specialist Coach

As a specialist coach you should always remember two time truths:

1. 

   'scrum better!'

   Time is irreplaceable. We never make it back once it is gone.
2. Time is measureable . Everybody has the same amount of time… peasant or king. Its not how much time you have it is how much time you use.

When you’re a specialist coach you have block of time to deliver a message, develop a skill, and execute it in a game situation that will carry over into a competition. With that title of specialist comes a certain level of pressure of being the expert and an over inflated sense of self worth that if you don’t reach your outcomes the team won’t perform. Because of those two factors we make the mistake of trying to do too much in one session which leads to either completing some of the outcome or completing nothing because of over explanation and not enough reps. This is a violation of time truth #2. Once this happen we fall into the cycle of moving things around in a later session to accommodate what missed and this violates time truth #1.

I made the same mistake the past two years in my preparation for these camps. I decide that I would reinvent how teams can score a try with elaborate systems and patterns. Then I arrive, look at a roster, and I’m reminded that this is an ever changing team with different names, skills, and experience levels. This year, I changed my approach by focusing on a process that is broken down into three areas.

1. Assess the squad- I was successful in this by putting them into common rugby scenarios (i.e. 2v1, 2v1 with support, etc) and watching their skills while only giving small coaching points. The outcome was simple, we wanted to see what they were good at.
2. Identify the strength and then build around it- We immediately ID’d that we were good with ball in hand so we started to build an attack structure around moving the point of contact and working to keep the ball alive.
3. Keep it simple- We had hard runners in the middle and speed on the outside. Instead of 5 elaborate but poorly executed starter moves we went with 2 simple starter moves that we focused on executing perfectly.

I made sure to hold myself to this three step process for every training and it had a direct effect on the time managment of that session. We would assess what we had done the previous session, build on it in the current session, and keep it simple by not over burden ourselves with unnecessary scenarios or instructions . I also worked to avoid the rabbit hole of coaching skills during team attack time. Often players won’t struggle with the concept of a pattern but will lack the skill to perform it. In the past I’ve been bogged down by this, using up precious time to coach a skill when I should’ve shelved it to work on with the individual player before or after training.

There is no one right way to manage your time but as you are planning a session or even performing a session ask yourself if you are respect the time truths. By doing that you are being an effective coach and not taking time away from other areas of the game.

At the end of the day these are just two personal lessons I've taken away from my time as a specialty coach. As these positions grow and become commonplace within the structure of a team we, as a coach community, have to make sure we develop with them. It is as simple as of respecting our personal time, our staff’s time and our team’s time by establishing and honoring our responsibility. While some of us might never have the staff of Clive Woodward we can still work to delegate portions of the game to worthy coaches.

The Saracens Experience

The Saracens Experience

The second week of January head strength coach, Stu Roche, and head rugby coach Brandon Sparks traveled to St. Albions England to shadow Saracens RFC, one of the top European rugby clubs. Our host for the week was general manager J.P. O’Reilly who oversees the daily operations of the team and long term development. It was our goal to experience the unique culture that has been fostered at their club and bring back ideas to use with UMRFC.

As was mentioned above, the goal of this trip was to experience and learn about Saracens ‘Player first’ mentality. This differs greatly from the philosophy here in the USA of athletes being treated as a source of income, or piece of property to be used and discarded for a newer, cheaper model. Saracens takes an approach that owner Edward Griffiths described to us as ‘Family first’. He sat and explained to us the process by which they make up their roster, which is as followed; Before a player is even signed to a contract he and his wife are invited to dinner with Edward and his wife. This dinner is treated as a informal job interview where Saracens motives for wanting to sign the player and expressed along with the why the player wants to play his rugby for them. It was explained to us that this dinner is one of the largest reasons why they are, or are not, signed to a contract. Once a player is on the roster he is privileged to ‘The Saracens Way’ which is the name they give their culture both on and off the field. Off the field, the tone is set by Edward himself, Simon Matticks the director of player welfare, and David Jones the director of personal development. These three men work with each other to give support to the players and families. The following are a few examples of the support given to the players; 100% of the active roster (First team all the way down to academy) are either enrolled in university courses or a work study program, this is to help the players to prepare for life after rugby and to avoid what happens to most retired athletes. This is initiative is lead by Edward himself. David Jones works to take care of the player and staff themselves with philosophy clubs, team vacations, and goal setting. His role is a hybrid between psychologist and mental coach. Simon’s Matticks’ primary focus is the players and staffs families well being. He works to organize wives, or life partners the tools to relieve as much stress as possible for themselves and their significant others. Some of the tools to accomplish this are free daycare classes during the week and game days, special events for just spouses and children, assistance in finding schools, banks, homes, and anything else to help set up and maintain a healthy household. While these are only a few examples of their culture the buy in from the players was amazing to see. In our conversations with some of the more experience players who had played at several different clubs around Europe they spoke adimately on how more clubs should adopt this model and how happy they were to play here. I have experienced shadowing several professional teams and big time college teams, and never have I seen a group of professionals, not just the team but also the office, coaching and medical staff, enjoy each others company as much as the people at Saracens do. This club isn’t just winning trophies and producing stars, they are developing great people.

What and how do we plan to bring this back and use it at UMRFC?

We spoke extensively with J.P. O’Reilly and Dave Jones about this topic and we came up 3 main action items we want to implement by next Fall:

1. We work the club mission statement to accurately reflect what we bring to the table both on the field and in the community.
2. Help incoming freshman players prepare for college life by giving them resources for time management, dietary needs, and a supportive environment where they can seek help with the challenges of college.
3. Give upperclassmen access to internship and jobs by setting up a network within our alumni group to help transition to post college life.

This are only three items, but we feel this will be things we can start on and implement immediately. As the club progresses we will continue to implement the notes on the lessons we took from “The Saracens Way”. We will also work to maintain a strong relationship with our contacts over there as the resource that they provide us can not be found here in America.

Our journey to England and time spent with Saracens could not be duplicated anywhere else in the world let a long America. Rugby is still a very young professional sport, with the global governing body sanctioning professionalism only 20 years ago. In those twenty years the United States has never had any form of professional set-up in it’s borders. The game in the U.S. is experiencing its heaviest growth, both monetary and in participation, in the college ranks which is leaving clubs scrambling for structure both on the pitch and in the administration branches. Rugby is a unique game and requires unique athletes that must be cared for differently than players from the big four sports. By us taking this trip and being given full access to the professional set-up of a global power in rugby puts UMRFC ahead of the curve in America. THe lessons we took away in culture, marketing, community outreach, medical care, training and match day management will prove valuable once implemented and make this club an entity that Rec Sports, the alumni and university will be proud of and use as a standard bearer for the rest of the country.