Coach Rating System strengthening coaching skills nationwide

4/25/2016

By Ker’Shyra Myrick

The City of Litchfield Park in Arizona is dedicated to providing its youth sports leagues with a variety of quality programs throughout the school year for children between the ages of 3 and 14. With this quality programming comes quality coaching, which is made up of volunteer coaches who are trained through the National Youth Sports Coaches Association (NYSCA). 

In order to keep their volunteer coaches excelling on the field, the City of Litchfield Park recently joined an ever-growing list of organizations nationwide that are using the Coach Rating System, which was created by the National Alliance for Youth Sports to enable recreation staffs to evaluate the effectiveness of their coaches throughout the season.

“We wanted to give our volunteer coaches a chance to see how the parents on their team felt the season went,” says Patrick McCoy, the Youth and Sports Coordinator for Litchfield Park, which serves more than 1,500 participants and 165 teams. “The Coach Rating System is another way to help us improve their coaching, and our programs.”

The Coach Rating System allows parents to anonymously rate their child’s coach in more than a dozen  key coaching areas, such as the coaches’ knowledge of the sport’s rules, how effective their practices are, how well they teach sportsmanship, their proficiency at identifying and correcting improper technique, and how effective they are in motivating players, among others.

Just like performance evaluations in the workplace or progress reports at school, multiple evaluations during the season provide both the organization and the coaches with valuable feedback on their performance.

And in many cases coaches gain valuable reinforcement that they are handling all of their responsibilities really well.

“Our coaches like the tool and have received great feedback from the parents,” says McCoy. “Some have seen what they have done in the past and improved in the areas they needed to.”

As a volunteer based organization most of the coaches at Litchfield Park are parents who decided to volunteer and ultimately enjoy the experience. And the Coach Rating System has improved their overall skills.

“I am most proud of our coaches and participants,” says McCoy. “Being a smaller city we rely on coaches returning throughout the season. Organization is key and has helped our customers get the great experience they want. If it were not for them we couldn’t do the things we want to achieve. We have non-residents come to our leagues even though they have more options. That speaks volumes.”

The NAYS Coach Rating System is sponsored by TeamSnap, the No. 1 online sports team management application for coaches, managers and organizers to save time organizing their teams and groups.

Coach Rating System Litchfield Park NYSCA Volunteer coaches

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