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AFM Magazine

AFM Magazine


Cutting the Chord

From the Coaches Office to the Mobile Office
by: Rod Smith
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Coaching great Knute Rockne is known for his motto "Winning - it's not everything ... it's the only thing." But as any successful coach can tell you, perhaps the only thing you can really count on are the long, often tedious hours. No one needs to remind you that coaching is a time-consuming profession. You've been there. Late nights followed by early mornings. And if by some miraculous intervention more hours were added to the day, you'd probably just spend this surplus time in your office, right?

Besides, that's where your computer is; that's where you edit film; that's where you print out next week's scouting reports; and that's where you draw up game plans, weight workouts and practice agendas, right? Thanks to technology it doesn't have to be this way, though. Anymore, technology applications are just as likely to liberate you from as they are to confine you to the office.

Recent advances in portability have taken the computer out of the coach's office. Accompanying software applications make it easier for coaches to get their work done while on the road. Similarly, equipment advances will soon take the guess work out of player evaluation. Analyzing players will involve comparing objective numbers and correcting fundamentals will be made easier with video reinforcement. In fact, it won't be long until they are mounting computers, perhaps not conventional ones, onto blocking sleds. Think that's a stretch? Not for long.

TAKE YOUR OFFICE WITH YOU

Whether recruiting or simply traveling to the next game, road trips for coaches are anything but vacations. But thanks to technology such as laptops and especially hand held computers, these road trips aren't simply wasted time anymore either.

Hand held computers, some small enough to fit into your shirt pocket, allow you to take care of daily tasks such as meeting plans, practice schedules, and to do lists, all the while having access to complete address and date books. Meanwhile, software applications have made hand helds even more functional.

In fact, scouting and recruiting are just two areas that have been made simpler as a result of hand held technology. One coach who has been using the hand held to scout his opponents since the device's invention in the mid-1990s is Mark Reeve. The head coach at Plano West Senior High School, Reeve uses hand held software from Digital Scout to scout his opponents and his own team. Before switching to the hand held system, Reeve's program originally deployed a punch card system and then adapted that to a more conventional software application. Using the Digital Scout software allows Reeve's staff to compile an opponent's tendencies usually from three to six games worth and still have time to scout themselves and figure out what their own tendencies may be.

"The Digital Scout allows us to save about 20 man-hours a weekend, and any time you can do that it greatly improves your efficiency," says Reeve, who started using the program when it ran on the Apple Newton and has stuck with it through its evolution to the Palm Operating System. In fact, according to one industry insider, the development of the Palm OS created many new opportunities for hand held computers.

According to Jim Emery of Digital Scout, the company which pioneered both hand held scouting and statistics software, there are now five major manufacturers of hand held computers - a fact he says continues to create competition, foster development and drive prices for these devices even lower. When Digital Scout started marketing its product six years ago, Emery says he sold coaches a software and hardware package for around $2,000. Now the software costs about one fourth of that while an entry-level hand held retails for as little as $150. According to Emery, ease of use and time saved are the three main reasons coaches choose hand held technology.

While continuing to lead the way in hand held scouting software, Digital Scout recently forged ahead and developed a statistics package that allows statistics to be taken in real time. According to Emery, it is allowable for statisticians to use the hand held computers to gather and process information during a game, which allows coaches to focus on football not the media. Minutes after the game, reports would be ready to printed and then faxed or distributed to members of the media.

"What we're trying to do is give coaches tools," Emery says. "(Using the software and the hand held) is going to help them save time and its going to help them prepare to win the game."

Thanks to hand held technology even the once arduous task of recruiting has been made easier. With the right software, you can download recruit information from your office computer and have instant access to it at the touch of a screen. No more briefcases full of reams of paper. While on the road, add potential recruits quickly or update recruit files easily, and when you return to the office upload the new information without the hassles or time delays of recreating the data. It's already there for you.

One coach who uses hand held technology for recruiting is Notre Dame receivers' coach Joker Phillips. He first started using a program called The Recruiter from Cybersports a little more than two years ago when at the University of Minnesota. After first traveling and using the program on his laptop, Phillips has since switched to using the hand hand for even greater flexibility. "Before the Recruiter there was a lot of paper work," Phillips said. "Having to keep up with all the paper work and taking all the paper work on the road, it was like you had to have two briefcases back then."

While being able to travel lighter is an additional advantage, Phillips believes the biggest benefit of using the hand held system for recruiting is the amount of time he saves. "Some guys have a system of a lot of paper work and are comfortable with that," Phillips says. "For me, it helps me time wise. Now, at the touch of a button, I can print my (recruit) list out."

ELIMINATE SUBJECTIVITY — STOP THE GUESSING

How do you evaluate a player on the practice field? For most coaches, evaluations come from what they see and hear. For instance when driving a sled, which player is creating the most force? Is it the one who produces the loudest sound from the sled? Not necessarily. Applying technology on the practice field can reduce the subjective evaluations you have to make as a coach and replace them with more useful, objective data. No more guessing which player has the fastest reaction time or can hit the hardest.

For more than six decades now, Rae Crowther Company has been making blocking sleds and other practice equipment with the goal of helping players improve their fundamentals. According to Crowther's sales and marketing director Hans Krause, taking the subjective aspect out of coaching becomes fundamental to player development. "The more you can make things objective and not subjective, usually the more accurate you are," says Krause, who believes technology allows coaches to get more repetitions in during practice and also helps them pinpoint and correct a player's technique flaws quicker. "Maybe in the first week now he can correct his form and (the player) can start getting better immediately."

While not yet able to give specific details, Krause speculates that future sleds will incorporate more technology and could likely take advantage of the science of telemetry, or automatic measurement and

transmission of data. According to Krause some variables that could be measured include a player's force or the speed in which a sled is driven. Currently, there are some products on the market which are able to measure a player's force or reaction time, but none that store a record of performance for later recall. Look for future sleds to assist coaches by recording individual trials and then allowing them to compare and analyze this data later.

Including technology in practice can also increase players' competitiveness. As a coach, you can't always monitor each and every repetition that a player takes. But with the aid of technology such as a timer or a liquid crystal display (LCD) that produces a readout, it becomes harder for a player to slack off or go easy. Hand held devices that store individual trials will allow coaches to monitor players' efforts without the need to see every repetition. And with a computer storing the result of every trial, each time a player takes a rep or hits the sled, it becomes a mini competition between him and each of the other players involved in the drill. When used in this context, technology pushes each athlete to compete at their highest level, on every repetition. Competing at the highest level on every play enhances performance and helps players improve. Improving creates a better chance for success.

While it's no secret that the best training methods are competitive ones, Ken Staten of Rogers Athletics believes that increasing competitiveness means players will enjoy practice even more. "You have

players - all these guys are full of testosterone - and looking to be quicker, stronger and faster," Staten says. "They enjoy the competitive part of seeing who can hit the hardest or the quickest."

When questioned about the future convergence potential of technology and practice equipment, Staten says he believes performance measurement, especially weightroom performance will be one of the next areas targeted by technology.

Whether applied traditionally in the office or adapted more conventionally to the road, sideline or practice field, technology can save time, help you prepare more efficiently and give you more accurate and detailed performance data. These are the simple facts. If you've spent the last few minutes reading this article, then you have that much less time to prepare for your next opponent. And with a finite number of hours in each day, it has become harder and harder to simply outwork your opposition. Today, the key to success becomes working smarter and making more efficient use of your time. Investing in technology can not only make you a more likely candidate for success, it can help you get out of the office too. Put technology in your corner, on your practice field, or maybe just in your pocket.



Hand held computers, some small enough to fit into your shirt pocket, allow you to take care of daily tasks such as meeting plans, practice schedules, and to do lists, all the while having access to complete address and date books. Meanwhile, software applications have made hand helds even more functional.






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