A message for all coaches & players.

"Behind every fearless player is a fearless coach who refused to let them be anything but the best they can be"

NOTE: Please share & comment. I'm interested to hear other coaches & players thoughts and opinions around this.

I came across this quote a few weeks ago and it had a big effect on me when I was reading it. I have read the quote before (many times in fact), but it affected me more reading it this time around for some reason. Why you ask well, on the theme of motivation (We are still on the ‘new year’ bandwagon… one this note does anyone know how long you can keep telling people to have a good new year? Is there a time limit let’s say January 10th?) there is so much going on (in my coaching world) in the coaching world, building up programs, working with different types of people, traveling around I get asked a lot how do I stay motivated, how do I not burn out, how do I fit it all in?

How does the motivator (the coach) stay motivated?

Something that people who do not coach may not recognize or understand is that fact that for every hour on the field there is about 4/5 hours off the field that the coach puts into their work to make the on field be as effective as possible.

Let’s do the maths briefly. Take a standard amateur club that trains twice a week and plays 1 game on a Saturday.

Training – Tuesday, Thursday – 2 hours each

Game – Saturday (15s game – 80 minutes & Warm up / Cool Down)

Total Rugby on field = Just under 6 hours (depending on warm up time)

So, the ratio between on field and off field let’s say is 1:4. That’s a total of 24 hours of 'off field' work.

You maybe thinking well what is there to do that takes 4 hours. (That's another conversation)

SO.... Total hours during the week devoted to Rugby – 30 hours per week.

Doesn’t seem to bad… However, notice I said amateur. So that means that this coach probably (certainly) has a full-time job (typically 40 hours). Here then there is 70 hour's in the week gone before you factor in family times, social life, relationships, exercise etc.

According to Edison Research more than half the USA population is awake by 7am. And depending on the state between 10:30pm & midnight. So lets call that 11pm to make the number easy.

The average person is awake for 16 hours a day.

Daily Break down

Work / Job: 8 hours

Rugby: 4 hours

Family / Social / Relationships, Exercise: 4 hours

Granted the coach makes the decision to choose this life but it’s not an easy one if its done properly (At the amateur level).

Now imagine this at the professional level where coaching is your full-time role / job. WOW amazing what a job that would be!

This image is an example of what a full-time time table of a professional set up may look like for a week.

WOW and that’s just for the players.

Now imagine the head coach. What do they then have to go though remember that 1:4 ratio. They have a squad of ball park 35 players which includes

Players:

• Wants

• Needs

• Emotions

• Physical demands

• Mental capacity

• Social well being

• Money & livelihood

• Media management

• Health