Due to some emails I have received, I have been asked to give a behind-the-scenes look at some things coaches do.  In the behind the scenes series, I will discuss things that are important to coaches that, if done right, makes our job easier and less stressful, but doesn’t get any accolades in any media. You never see “Team A beat Team B because Team A had a great practice the day before” and you never will. Coaches know which coaches work hard and which ones don’t. But this is for players and fans who have never coached before. In this article, I break down something that is very important to coaches who try to get the most out of what little time they get with their players, Practice Plans.

Some coaches write practice plans down, some just have them in their heads. I prefer and suggest writing them down or typing them. This is a little more work, but it really helps you keep your practices on track. If you don’t write them down, your practice points can sometimes go on too long and next thing you know practice is over and you haven’t covered half off the things you wanted to.

There is a lot of thought that must be put into a practice plan. You have to use stats and notes from previous games for things to improve on. You also have to take your next opponent into account. If you have tape or played the team before, you know what you need to work on, but sometimes, especially in high school, this doesn’t happen and you have to rely on second-hand information from coaches who have played them. This is where social interaction with other coaches is valuable.

Depending on your own individual philosophy, you may want to finish a practice with a scrimmage, or save time later in practice to reiterate some game-like situations for an upcoming game. You also need to account for time for stretching, or you may have a time slot set aside in pre-practice. Whatever you decide you must prepare for it in your practice plan.

My practice plans usually will build up in skills throughout the practice. For instance, If I want to spend a lot of time on hitting. I will do an individual defense drill in the beginning of practice where the hitters throw the ball at the defensive players who are tasked with popping the ball straight up and slightly ahead of them. While this drill is going on, the hitters are actually warming up their arms without even knowing it. When we move on to hitting, the defense is already warmed-up too.

An example practice plan excerpt with the following criteria, would be:

• A day after a match when we had poor out-of-system offense.
• A powerful serving team coming up later in the week.

3:00-3:30pm – Arrival, dress, stretching, warm-up

3:30pm – Discussion about previous match. What can we improve on? What did we do well?

3:40pm – Ten-foot self toss warm-ups.

3:55pm – Water Break – (players must do a conditioning drill; push-ups, sit-ups, wall-sits, etc to get Water Break)

4:00pm – Poison

- Players serve from opposing side, coach plays first ball, poorly.
- Other 5 players need to finish the last two hits with an aggressive attack.|
- Team gets a point for each good aggressive ball to opponent target (preset).
- Coach gets a point for each bad play.
- Players rotate serve/play/shag after 5 serves.
- Drill is over when team/coach gets to 20. (number can change)

4:15pm – Sports Attack Serve-receive Side-out.
- Sports Attack serves tough serves to 6 players on opposing side (Team A) other side defends serve (Team B).
- Team A gets 1 point for each side-out on first ball.
- Team A gets 2 points for each side-out on a first ball that includes a tandem.
- Team B gets a point each time they stop a side-out on a first ball.
- No team gets points if a rally occurs (points are only awarded after first ball played.
- Drill is over when a team reaches 25. (number can change)

4:35pm – Water Break – (players must do a conditioning drill; push-ups, sit-ups, wall-sits, etc to get Water Break)

4:40pm – “5 Points” Drill (Points are bad M’Kay) Teaches aggressive serves, and develops passing confidence.

- Servers serve the ball to 3 passers. Coach stands at target. Other players rotate in/out after each ball is played.
- The server gets a point if:
- Passer passes to target.
- Serve is out.
- Passer gets a point if:
- Pass is shanked outside of court lines (no second touches).
- Ball is overpassed.
- Each point is documented off court by player’s name.
- First player to 5 sits out, but first must do 10 (insert conditioning drill, e.g. Push-ups).
- Each player repeats the drill when they reach 5 points until only 2 players are left.
- Players sitting out must repeat drill with player that just reached 5. Meaning if you have 10 players, the  first player out will do about 100 push-ups

4:55pm – Scrimmage Play (with a twist, based on need)

- Teams play normal scrimmage to 25.
- We need to work on out-of-system, so teams get 2 points for out-of-system rally termination.
- I want my team to be in-system when out-of-system so I will start seeing forced out-of-system plays to get  the extra point.
- To avoid bad muscle memory problems, I’ll change the scoring to 2 points for tandem plays.

5:15pm – Dismissal, give an overview of what will be covered at tomorrow’s practice and other important information.

As you can see, I document a lot. I am actually a Technical Writer in the business world so it’s my nature. You can run into problems if you have to punish players for talking, being late, or calling in sick, etc. So it’s important to run a tight ship and not let those things happen so much. In any case, they still may happen so you should remain flexible just in case.

Practice plans are also good when your style or coaching is put into question. If you have a very strict A.D. you may need to have practice plans to back up your coaching ability. Being armed with what you work on each day is great for a young coach to have in case someone accuses them of not doing their job. You would be surprised how often this may happen to even the best of coaches. Having evidence to support your style is never a bad thing.

Sometimes it takes me an hour to write up a practice plan. Sometimes it takes me ten minutes. But practices aways seem better when more thought is put into it. The biggest compliment a coach can receive is when a player tells the media something like, “We felt really prepared and were able to beat them because we knew how to handle their strengths as well as their weaknesses.”

Practice preparation is a very big part of the job description and practice plans are the glue that holds your sanity together.