Video touches every part of sports in the modern climate. Here’s why it matters and how all coaches should use it.

We know the value of video at Hudl. It’s the bedrock of our company, the cornerstone we’ve used to build our entire structure.

At this point, most coaches also see video’s value. They understand it can be used as a scouting tool or a way to correct mistakes.

Click here to discover game-changing insights with video.

But that’s only scratching the surface.

The power of video is nearly limitless, and we’ve heard the proof. Coaches have told us it saved their season or played a key role in an upset. We’re here to help you fully understand the capabilities of video and the effect it can have for you this year.

Develop Your Players

Video has become the ultimate teaching tool for coaches to relate to their athletes. It’s one thing to tell a player what to fix or what’s happening during the action. But the ability to show them what’s happening and how to adjust allows for a whole new level of learning.

“I can’t tell you how many times as a coach you would talk to a kid on the sideline and you say, ‘You’re doing this wrong.’ And he says, ‘No I’m not. I’m doing this,’” Duane Maranda, the head football coach at Westerly High School (R.I.), said. “They don’t necessarily understand the big picture and what you’re asking them to do. But when you show it to them, there’s no arguing with that.”

Coaches across all sports have recognized that athletes tend to be visual learners. While they respond to verbal lessons and can improve from instructions, adding the visual element to what a coach says helps them make a stronger connection.

“This generation of kids responds to video, whether it’s YouTube or whatever,” Michael Stewart, a coach for the Each 1 Teach 1 basketball club, said. “I think that’s the best way to get their attention. For them, it’s showing them some of the good things. They respond to it because they get to watch themselves on TV. And when bad things come up, they’re able to see right away that maybe what they thought was going on wasn’t really going on.”

Stay Objective

One of the hardest things for a coach to do is completely eliminate biases from their assessment — in fact, the human mind is incapable of doing it. Hard as we fight it, our emotions are always going to affect the way we recall an event.

Don’t believe it? Trust the words of Brett Woods and Brett Haskell, athletic psychologists at the University of Nebraska.

“Our emotions can sometimes override our prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for evaluating performances, more of the logistics of evaluation,” Brett Woods said. “That can color your perception of the event and your memory, your recall is more shaded by your emotional evaluation of the performance rather than the actual event that took place.”

Rewatching a game or practice can provide the clarity that’s lost in the heat of the battle. In the moment, our brains create theories and opinions that may or may not be accurate based on our emotions.

“I develop a hypothesis and then I look for only the information that confirms my hypothesis,” Brett Haskell said. “If my hypothesis is that my team is playing terrible, I hone in on their mistakes and neglect the information that contradicts that hypothesis and tells me they’re actually playing okay. In situations where there is heavy emotion in the moment, that impacts that bias even more.”

Video eliminates emotion from the equation. Upon second review, coaches can clearly see what really occurred and eliminate the subjectivity the brain is prone to.

Find the Right Stats

Statistics are an integral part of any evaluation process. Diving into the numbers can reveal tendencies that are easy to miss during game action.

But the stats sheet only goes so far. While the data can provide useful information, linking it to video provides much greater context. With Hudl, one click is all that separates a coach from a statistic, and a corresponding playlist of the video clips tied to that stat.

Video makes the numbers come to life.

“Being able to link your passing percentage to video is great,” Bryan Amos, a former D1 soccer coach, said. “Being able to say to a player, ‘Listen, you had a 92% passing efficiency. But as a center-mid, I am telling you that you need to pass the ball forward more. You’re getting the ball in a safe place right in front of the back four, where you don’t have any pressure, and playing it outside to a wide-open right back and going back and forth in our defensive third… that’s not leading us to anything.’

“If all he was looking at was that number, without it being linked to video, he would never see that those passes weren’t helping us.”

Scout Your Opponent

It’s key to address your own team’s needs, but dissecting your rival’s game plan can be just as critical. Just ask Ryan Grates, an assistant coach at Cape Fear High School (N.C.), who scoured the video and discovered crucial tendencies that allowed the Colts to win the East regional championship.

“Our defense almost knew what they were running before they ran it because of all the tendencies we got from (the video).”

Ryan Grates, football coach at Cape Fear High School (N.C.)

Finding a key tactical edge in your scouting can be the crucial component that gives you a leg up on the competition. It plays a huge part in the process for USA Basketball. With a hectic tournament environment and little time between games, former assistant national team director BJ Johnson relied on video to get Team USA prepared for each opponent.

“Video is a huge, huge thing,” Johnson, now the coordinator of player evaluation for the Brooklyn Nets, said. “It’s something that people don’t necessarily see from the outside looking in, but it’s one of the things that really aides us in our preparations for competition. All the scouting of opponents as well as knowing our team and what makes us successful, it’s all hinged on video. It helps us grade ourselves and get prepared for our competition.”

Get Athletes Recruited

These days, the email inboxes and Twitter feeds of college coaches and recruiters are littered with messages from high school athletes hoping to get their attention.

The best way to catch coaches’ eyes is with a killer highlight video. Showcase your best moments into a short clip to get a player on a school’s radar. Flash some talent with highlights and coaches will watch full games to complete their evaluation.

And the more athletes you get recruited to top programs, the more your program is elevated and your reputation strengthened.

“You have to figure out a way to differentiate yourself, and video is a great way to do that,” Amos said. “If we saw a video that we really liked, it was, ‘Hey Bryan, you’re getting on a plane tomorrow to go see this kid live.’”

We could go on and on about the benefits of video, but we think our point has been made. Video is the connective tissue in the modern sports landscape. It helps communication with players, gives visuals to stats, gets athletes recruited and helps you find the holes in your upcoming opponent’s strategy.

Video is the present and future of athletics. Sign up and get a free mobile analysis kit, which includes an iPad, tripod, mountable iPad case, HDMI cords—basically everything you need to record and analyze your matches.

This post was provided by Coach Dawn Writes

By Dawn Redd-Kelly, Head Volleyball Coach at Beloit College.

Communication builds trust. Trust generates commitment. Commitment fosters teamwork. Teamwork delivers results.”–Jon Gordon

You want results?  Jon Gordon knows how to help.

1. Communication builds trust. For the most part, the time of the coach who just hollers, but doesn’t explain has passed.  Have a communication plan for your team.  Whether it’s weekly check-ins or regular individual meetings.  Tell your team your vision for the program…and recruits…and your team’s parents.  Everyone should know why you love coaching/your sport and where you think your team is going.
2. Trust generates commitment. If you’re one of those coaches who is trying to figure out how to get their team to be committed in the off-season or to hold their teammates accountable, building trust is key.  Trust between the coaching staff, trust between athlete and coach, and trust between the athletes.
3. Commitment fosters teamwork. This is the good stuff! Teamwork means you’ve got players who don’t care about playing time, who are willing to sacrifice their personal desires for the greater good, who lead or follow as your team dynamics require.  Teamwork is competitive, cooperative, and collaborative…not combative.
4. Teamwork delivers results. If you continually put in the work mentioned in the previous points, then you can bask in the wonderfulness that is a well-functioning team.

As you can see, this has to be intentional, but it’s good work and well worth the effort.

This article was provided by Coach Dawn Writes

By Coach Dawn Redd-Kelly,Head Volleyball Coach at Beloit College.

“When leaders discuss their organizations’ vision in a specific way, not only is the vision better understood, the leaders are also seen as being more effective in general.”—Fast Company

A team vision is only as good as the people who know and believe in it.  Here are 5 areas we should cover in order to make sure our program vision has a dynamic impact.

1. Inspiration: Create a way of talking about your vision that is engaging and exciting…to both you and the listener!
2. Challenge: Formulate a vision that challenges your players to be their best selves…on and off the playing field.
3. Clarity: Focus on simplicity. Your vision should be easily stated and easily remember by all who hear it.
4. Task-specific: Build a vision that can be used by your All-American as well as your player who never, ever gets…and will never, ever get any playing time.
5. Inclusion: Talk in “we’s” and “ours’”. Instead of saying, “my vision for the program is to…”, we should say, “this is who we are and this is who we want to be and we’re going to do it together.”

Who succeeds on your team?  What type of player are you looking for?  What would you want an outside coach watching your practice to say about your team?  Put that in your vision and make sure everyone involved in your program knows it!

This post was originally post at Coach Dawn Writes and republished here with permission

How should you deal with the player that is unhappy? This is tough but necessary work.

By Dawn Redd-Kelly, Head Volleyball Coach at Beloit College.

Maybe they’re not happy with their playing time.  Or perhaps you’ve asked them to play a position and they’re not happy with that change.  Or it could be that you have an athlete who is being a bad teammate and you’ve had to call them out on that behavior.

Whatever the origin, correcting an angry athlete is tough, but necessary work.  How should we do it?

• If you are worried that your conversation will be misrepresented, don’t meet with your athlete alone.
• The tougher the conversation, the more notes will be required to keep you focused on the task at hand…correcting a specific behavior. You don’t want the convo to turn into discussing the five other things your athlete is upset about.
• Listen intently. A contrite athlete should receive a different talk than an unrepentant player.
• Don’t allow that athlete to throw their teammates under the bus. You’re talking to them.  If others are in need of correcting, you’ll talk to them separately…stay focused.
• Have a goal for the meeting. What does the player need to do in order to resolve the issue and regain your trust or proper standing with the team?

We work with young people who are just learning to manage their emotions in productive ways.  It’s our job to show them how to be responsibly upset and to correct improper behavior if it appears.