Coaching Volleyball Magazine October / November 2015 - Page 16

14 | October/November 2015 | COACHING VOLLEYBALL

Engaging not only the administration in
your program but also faculty and students
can really help create a sense of community.
Think about doing things like having faculty
act as honorary coaches. Special viral events
such as last year’s ice bucket challenge are a
great way to build on things that are already
popular and reaching the general student population. Think about letting administrators or
faculty travel with the team to an away game
or something that allows them to see behindthe-scenes of your program and get to know
they players in a way that they might not usually get to. For administrators that spend a lot
of time in the office, engaging with the team
on a personal level can help them better understand how they can make a direct impact on
your program and the players that comprise it.
That sense of making a true impact can be very
rewarding for an administrator that doesn’t get
to spend much time in the field.
Don’t be afraid to do some basic teambuilding activities with administrators and
athletes. Having the compliance folks, the
training staff, the academic planners, etc.
come and get to know the players and their
personalities allows everyone to do their respective jobs better and adds a personal touch
to routines that might otherwise seem mundane. People are more likely to go the extra
mile when they can better understand the
perspective of the others involved in a situation. Along those lines, do some volunteering.

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OKLA HOM A A THLETIC S

come up
working closely
with student-athletes and may miss that bit
of interaction, so helping with player issues
directly may be a way to make them feel
more engaged in a way that they’re comfortable with. Another administrator, however,
may be more in tune with numbers and business-type decisions, and may feel as if they’re
more engaged with you working through a
budget issue or helping with planning.
Once trust and strong communication is
established, you can get down to the business
of discussing the long-term vision for the
program. Having big goals is important – but
having a clear, established path for achieving
those goals is how you’ll actually get there.
Don’t be vague when meeting with your administration. Develop specific components
of your program that will help you achieve
the success that everyone wants and have a
plan for how the administration can directly
help you implement them. Have a timeline
for success mapped out and see where you
can work together to make things happen.
Maybe it’s help with fundraising, such as
meeting with boosters or making introductions for potential supporters.
If you’re the head coach, think of yourself
as the CEO of the program. As such, it’s your
responsibility to have a clear vision for how
the program should operate, the benchmarks
that you’ll use to measure success and a definitive framework for the development of the
student-athlete. Throughout the course of
meeting with your administrators, this vision

may fluctuate and grow
depending on the available resources and the expectations of others in the
department. That’s part of
the process, but taking the
initiative to be direct and
purposeful goes a ۙ