Lets talk about softball record keeping and how many coaches are record keeping with games already, but do other activities have a record keeping purpose. Do you have your athletes keeping records? What are some unknown benefits of keeping records on regular events. Many of us use record keeping for statistics. We do that all the time. Or we have one of the parents keeping stats for us, or we have our scorekeepers compile them. But what else can we keep track of?
Softball Record Keeping Tools
Attendance
Believe it or not, attendance is one of the biggest pieces of information you can have. It can be used for tracking performance for example. If you have a player who doesn’t seem to be improving, look at her attendance and see how many opportunities she has missed. Does she generally miss practices more than games? This is important because practice time is where most of the skill related improvement occurs. It might also be that she is attending practices and games but needs individual coaching to get passed a specific skill difficulty she is having. We can never address all of the skills for everyone during a practice.
By keeping attendance at practices and games, you can also sometimes determine the dedication of your players by how many practices they miss. Some players think they are good and don’t need practice or would just rather play games instead.
It’s also one of the best tools for when someone inquires about playing time. By keeping attendance and attaching playing time and positions to games, you can compile a useful document as you have that discussion with the player and or her parents.
Practice Plans
Many coaches have copies of their practice plans from the beginning of the first season they coached. But did you know how many uses they have? If you have a chart for each skill that you are focusing on for the year, you can document how many times you worked on each skill and in what context. This way if your team still seems to be struggling with their run-down execution, simply look at your chart and see how much you actually worked on it. This might give you some insight into the reasons for the difficulties.
You could also take each of the drills that you use in your practice plans and store them in a drills folder as an image or a text document with an image for the drill. This way when you are designing practice plans all you have to do is go to your drill vault and pick and chose the drills you want to include into your practice plan if you do it on your computer. In the drill, be sure to include the equipment required which is something we don’t usually do, so that you are prepared when the time comes.
You can even record the times, and days of the week to see which day has the most players absent so that maybe you can adjust it to get more players on the field.
Many coaches have copies of their practice plans from the preseason practices at the beginning of the first season they coached. But did you know how many uses they have? If you have a chart for each skill that you are focusing on for the year, you can document how many times you worked on each skill and in what context. This way if your team still seems to be struggling with their run-down execution, simply look at your chart and see how much you actually worked on it. This might give you some insight into the reasons for the difficulties.
You could also take each of the drills that you use in your practice plans and store them in a drills folder as an image or a text document with an image for the drill. This way when you are designing practice plans all you have to do is go to your drill vault and pick and chose the drills you want to include into your practice plan if you do it on your computer. In the drill, be sure to include the equipment required which is something we don’t usually do, so that you are prepared when the time comes.
You can even record the times, and days of the week to see which day has the most players absent so that maybe you can adjust it to get more players on the field.
Team Events
You can tell a lot by the events that you have scheduled during your season. When you have a team building event for example, document any changes that you might have noticed after the event. Did it bring the team together? Did the players appear to be more interactive with everyone instead of only their friends?
If you had a parent meeting, how long did the parents adhere to the policies after the meeting. You may have discussed for example parents refraining from giving instructions during games to their daughter. Many times, the request will last for a while and then things will go back to normal. By noticing behavior changes in your team and the environment, you may be able to use your information to determine when it will be time for another meeting or event. You can even almost anticipate changes in advance just by being aware and making notes after games and practices.
Player record keeping
It’s a great tool to have your team keep records even in the form of a softball related journal. If they feel comfortable they can share their thoughts with you which might help you to make their experience more rewarding or you could even find out something that they are really enjoying about being on the team. Sometimes players feel more comfortable about writing things down than saying the words. I even had a file box in the dugout where the players could request their file which had lined note paper in it, and write down notes or anything they wanted for me to read later. It was an awesome tool because they felt they had a communication line to me and I had more insight into their experience on the team. All files would be in the box which was locked and the player would simply ask for her file and I or another coach or manager would get it for them and then replace it when they were finished. It could be requested at any time during a game or practice.
As you can see, there are many ways to use records that don’t always have to do simply with statistics. Of course, this information is valuable and your players can benefit from them as much as you can.
Listen To Podcast:
Episode 36 – Record Keeping
