Staff Training and Education

As a league administrator you are the expert. You need to take your expertise and use it to educate your parents, coaches, staff, referees, and any other volunteers involved in your program. Whether it’s your league rules, policies, procedures or just basic conduct and expectations for youth sports participants, you need to educate your participants to ensure they understand. Don’t just assume they know how to act at a youth sports game or will always read all the information you hand out. Sometimes you need to take it a step further to ensure all participants know everything about your program and youth sports in general.

Training youth sports staff—whether coaches, referees, or volunteers—requires a structured approach to ensure they are knowledgeable, confident, and effective in their roles. Here are six strategies to use to help educate everyone involved in your program:

1. Parent Orientation: If you have the ability, hold a pre-season orientation for all your parents. This can be a great first impression for your program as well as allow you to distribute and review all your programs rules, policies, procedures, and expectations. Usually just parents and other volunteers would need to attend this, not the kids. Taking steps to educate your parents before the season starts can set the tone for the entire season and get ahead of issues that could arise later.
   
   
2. Run a Well Organized Coaches Meeting: A lot of the education you provide will come out at your coaches meeting. It is important to run an organized and efficient coaches meeting to get the most out of it.
   
   
3. Provide Training: Put together in house training for staff, participants, referees, coaches or other volunteers as well as find outside resources that can help your staff and volunteers be the best they can be. Training topics can include:

• Sportsmanship
• Game Day Expectations
• How to Run a Practice
• How to Effectively Coach and Interact with Kids
• Conflict Management
• Bullying and Abuse
• Concussions and Basic First Aide
  
  

4. Get Training for Yourself: There are not only resources for your participants, but for you as well. If you take trainings or a certification, you can pull from them to create your own trainings for participants. The more knowledge and training you have, the more you can pass on to your participants.
   
   
5. Provide Resources: You won’t always have a ton of time with your coaches and parents to go through extensive trainings. Get what you can through your orientations and coaches meeting, and then give them rest to them. It is always a good idea to have a list of resources coaches and parents can go to on their own time to get training, find drills for practices, learn more about your program, etc. They don’t always know what is out there so make sure to provide that for them!
   
   
6. Staff Meetings: Always have a pre-season meeting with any staff, referees, or volunteers that will be a part of the administration of the league. Similar to what you do with participants and coaches, set expectations, review rules, and open that line of communication for the upcoming season. Continue this weekly on site during the season before each game.
   
   

Staff are your most valuable asset and we should invest in our staff by providing training, education, teambuilding and networking opportunities, and empowering them to do great things within your leagues! If you are a volunteer run organization, you can still apply many of the same concepts to your volunteers. Here are some suggestions to make your staff the best they can be:

• Have an orientation and training program to set expectations and review policies. Setting the tone for your staff early is important to get everyone on the same page and acclimated to how you operate your league and what you expect from them. Some of the things you have to review prior to the season are not always the most exciting so add things to spice it up to engage your staff during orientations and meetings. Some things you can do to engage with your staff at meetings are:
  • Give small prizes for answering questions or making a great comment
  • Role play different scenarios that are sure to come up
  • Do group activities
  • Add in videos or music
  • Move around to different areas of your facility
    
    
• Take advantage of outside resources for new ideas. There are several great resources online that can provide you tools and education to improve your leagues. Continually search and seek out new ideas that may benefit your league to keep things fresh for your staff and participants.
  
  
• Stay on top of industry standards and best practices. Similar to researching new ideas for your league, you also want to stay on top of the current trends and industry standards. Not just from an operational stand point, but new legislations that may bring legal aspects of how you have to operate. There are a few national governing organizations that do a lot of this for you, you just have to make sure you stay in touch. Things are always changing and evolving so make sure your league doesn’t fall behind on the current way of doing things!
  
  
• Provide networking opportunities to collaborate with other league professionals to connect and share ideas. Networking is important and another way to stay on top of all the things we have talked about above. Seeing and hearing how others are operating is great way to see how you can compare and potentially improve your leagues. Ask questions, share ideas, and tell stories to connect with others in the field. Networking is not only for League Administrators, bring your staff into the mix too! Here are a few ways you can connect with others in the field:
  • Join an association in the industry
  • Attend a conference or regional training
  • Connect online
  • Team up with others in your area for joint activities
    
    
• Include your staff in the planning process and empower them to take some responsibilities on their own. To really get staff engaged include them in as much as possible. Directing, giving orders, and just plugging them in to be another body will not go too far and will cause your staff to check out sooner than later. Most will learn more by doing so involving them in your processes and giving them their own responsibilities will develop them more and keep them motivated.
  
  
• Get Feedback. Talk to your staff individually and as a group to get feedback on things like their goals, what motivates them, their thoughts on how the league is running, ideas on how to improve, etc. Your staff are on the front lines of the league each week. Talk to them regularly and anything you can get feedback on can only help everyone involved.

A well-trained youth sports staff ensures a safe, enjoyable, and developmentally appropriate experience for young athletes. By providing structured training, emphasizing safety and communication, and fostering ongoing learning, leagues can develop knowledgeable and confident staff members who contribute positively to the sports community. Investing in quality training leads to a better experience for everyone involved—players, coaches, parents, and officials alike.