Technology Crossroads

More and more coaches are embracing new technologies to improve their coaching ability and their resumes. Should you?
by: Richard Scott
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Bobby April had reached a crossroads in his career and his life.

When the New Orleans Saints fired Mike Ditka’s staff after the 1999 season, April – the special teams coach – found himself without a job. April also found himself with a year left on his contract, and decisions to make.

“I had a daughter who was going to be a senior in high school, and I wasn’t going to move under any circumstances. I wasn’t going to take a job anywhere else,” recalls April, now special teams coach for the St. Louis Rams. “I had already reached a turning point in my life because I had begun a spiritual walk and committed my life to Christ about a year before we got fired. I had really been given a great opportunity to learn from some tremendous spiritual mentors and I was really able to edify myself to a great degree.

“Plus, I was really working on trying to advance myself as a coach. I had an entire year to read books that I had always wanted to read but never got around to for one reason or another. I was able to learn more about the technical aspects of the game as well.

“All of these things were coming together at the same time.”

While April may not have needed to improve his technological knowledge to land another coaching job, he surely knew that enhancing his computer skills wouldn’t hurt his chances of making a quick return to an NFL sideline.

April isn’t alone, though. In fact, he’s just one of many examples in the coaching world. From NFL teams to junior high programs, the emergence of new forms of technology to assist with play diagramming, use of game film and many other aspects of game preparation and player evaluation. It’s time for coaches to ask themselves if their reluctance to embrace technology could have negative impacts on their competitive edges – and their professional futures.

The Baltimore Ravens made computer technology a high priority when Brian Billick took over as head coach, and the organization credits the daily use of available technology as one of the reasons for its Super Bowl championship run in 2000.

Maryland also made a huge financial commitment in computer technology when Ralph Friedgen became the head coach in December 2000. The Terps then proceeded to enjoy their best season in more than two decades in 2001, winning 10 games and the ACC championship and earning a trip to the Orange Bowl.

Those are just two examples of coaching staffs using computers to work smarter and better. Some coaches are using advanced programs to cut the time they spend diagramming plays by more than half. Some are using simple programs to teach players in meetings. Some are using computers to assess play calling tendencies and overall efficiency.

Others are using advanced video systems to make better use of game film. Want cut-ups of every time your opponent ran the ball in goal line and short-yardage situations? How about every pass defense scheme in third-and-long situations? You can get it in a matter of seconds with the right video system.

Obviously, computer technology will never replace the basic fundamentals as the key to the game. The best teams will still excel in drafting and recruiting, offseason running and lifting, blocking and tackling, play calling and execution. The best teams will still hit hard, run hard and play hard for the entire game and find ways to make plays when it matters most.

But if computer technology could help you improve in all of those areas, or at least be more efficient and effective with your use of time, effort and communication, wouldn’t you be interested in knowing more about it?

“In every business, company and corporation, people are trying to get the edge with technology today,” Denver Broncos head coach Mike Shanahan told USA Today. “Football is no different.”

April first became aware of the potential impact of computer technology the same way many other adults do: in his house, from his kid. In 1994, when he was working with the Pittsburgh Steelers, his son was using a simple Macintosh Apple computer at school and making impressive progress, so the family bought a computer for home use.

“I remember walking into our study one day and looking at what he was doing, and I was just amazed. I had never really been around computers or been around a coach who used computers. That just didn’t exist in my world. I looked at what my son was doing and said, ‘Hey, do you think you could use some of this stuff with football?’ My son was literally able to show me how to draw diagrams for football. We used a simple ClarisWorks program, something third graders used, and it was outstanding.

“At that point, I knew I was at a tremendous disadvantage in terms of getting my point across to the players I coached.”

Another time, he attended an open house at his daughter’s school and watched in amazement as teachers presented classroom material using Microsoft’s PowerPoint program.

“My daughter was in fourth grade at the time, and I was thinking, these fourth graders are at an unbelievably higher level – in terms of grasping the information being presented – than any players I’ve ever coached,” April says. “It wasn’t even close.

“That was really the point where I knew that I was way, way behind, and I didn’t like it. It was tough.”

April wanted to learn more about this available technology, but like most coaches, self-improvement took a back seat to the time and effort it takes to get the job done from day-to-day.

“It’s still hard to improve when you’re coaching,” April says. “You have to take a lot of time and be very patient in learning it, or you just want to go back to the way you’ve always done it.”

That’s why April did all he could to make the best possible use of his year away from the game. He invested serious time, effort and energy on learning all he could about using available computer technology to enhance his coaching. He enrolled in classes to improve his knowledge of different computer programs. In the process, he learned how to take advantage of PowerPoint presentations and Excel-based statistical programs.

“We’re at a disadvantage we don’t even realize,” April says. “Most of the players we teach and coach were raised in an entirely different world than we were. I’m only 48 years old, but when I was a kid growing up in Louisiana the only way you could catch LSU football games was to go to the game or listen to it on radio. Every now and then they might be on television, but not very often. Even the big prizefights used to be on the radio. Now, everything is different.”

One lesson April has learned through embracing technology is that no matter how much you learn, the fast pace of emerging technologies means there’s always more to know.

“I’m still learning and I’m still light years behind where I’d like to be because everything changes so fast. I would love to know a lot more than I know. That will always be an elusive goal for me. There are other people out there in coaching who know a lot more than I do about this subject, who are at the pinnacle of using technology. I’m way down the line compared to them,” April says. But there are a lot of guys in my position – a lot of guys, some older and some younger, who realize this stuff is all foreign to them. But those guys need to know it can be a tremendous asset to your coaching.”

Teams throughout the NFL are using or implementing advanced technology. For example, Seattle coach Mike Holgrem’s use of computers influenced Tampa Bay coach Jon Gruden, who passed his experience on to Philadelphia head coach Andy Reid, who has emerged as one of the biggest proponents of computer use among NFL coaches.

Reid started with a simple drawing program called Super Paint to create plays on the computer, and quickly moved on to bigger and better things.

“From there I started entering my notes on all the different plays that we would put in,” Reid says. “Pretty soon, I had accumulated this massive file of information. Over a seven-year span, I had a nice little file.”

Few NFL teams have made more of a technological commitment than the Ravens. Billick’s own personal belief in to technology is a big reason for Baltimore’s overall commitment. Billick is an enthusiastic proponent of crunching numbers to produce statistics and computers that help the Ravens generate game plans and discover tendencies that could be decisive factors in games. He’s also convinced that the use of technology allows coaches to make better use of their time in the office.

“So much of our time was spent doing repetitive stuff just to get ready to be able to produce the game plan or have a practice or run a meeting,” says Ravens assistant Mike Nolan, an NFL coach since 1987. “There were so many hours where you really weren’t coaching. You were drawing and copying and handwriting things out. It would take me two hours, for example, to do play cards for a practice. Now with the computer, you can do it in 45 minutes or less. It’s incredible. It really has changed the way we go about coaching in this league.”

Instead of being surrounded by mounds of paper and piles of VCR tapes, coaches are now using desktop and laptop computers and CDs loaded with programs, information and video cut-ups.

“Take away a lot of things but don’t touch my computer,” Ravens offensive coordinator Matt Cavanaugh says. “I’d be lost without it.

“The day of drawing it on a chalkboard or putting an overlay on a projector are gone. Now we use PowerPoint, and we add color and movement and noise, something to get guys’ attention. “I can carry my laptop from my office to my meetings, and on that laptop, I’ve got every game plan we’ve used in the last two years. If I need to reference something, I don’t have to go back through a bunch of papers in a drawer and find something.”

At the same time, the Ravens know they’re not sending robots out on to the field for practice and games, and they haven’t forgotten about blocking, tackling and taking care of the ball. Billick has a comic strip in his office that shows a worried football coach with a laptop in his hands, surrounded by confused players. “My computer’s down,” the coach tells the players. “We’re going to have to punt.”
“People think that we plug numbers into a computer and it spits out a game plan. But using computers is really about being able to communicate more,” Billick says.

“You can’t overmechanize the game of football. This is like being an accountant. At some time, you’re going to have to take the pencil to the paper. But at the same time, you have to be able to use a computer if you’re going to be successful.”

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