Indoor Volleyball - Youth Indoor - How to Recruit Coaches

How Can Clubs Recruit Coaches? 

Finding and keeping good coaches is one of the biggest challenges that our clubs face each year. The clubs that are able to attract, train and retain good coaches tend to have the most long-term success.

A good starting point is the people who are involved with your club whether as players, past players, parents or friends. This is the best pool of coaches you have because they are associated with the club in some way and they will appreciate how important it is for your club to be able to recruit coaches each new season.

A good starting point in the search is to look at the people who are already involved with your club whether as players, past players, parents or friends. This is one of the better pools to draw from as they will already understand the needs of the club and have a vested interest in the success of the program.

What is it that motivates people to take on these roles? 

It helps to understand what motivates people to get involved in coaching as this will help your recruitment strategy.

 

What motivates people to take on a volunteer coaching role?

It helps to understand what motivates people to get involved in coaching as this will help develop your recruitment strategy.

Some common reasons:

• They want to support a family member who is involved in volleyball
• The sport has given them so much over the years and they want to give something back into volleyball
• They have an interest or passion for volleyball
• To gain personal satisfaction
• They have a community minded spirit and enjoy helping others
• They are looking to do something worthwhile for the young people in the community
• It is an avenue to make friends, develop social contacts and have fun
• They want to keep fit and active

 

Your club might be trying to attract younger people to do some coaching. Have you thought that they might have different motives for getting involved?

Younger people may see this as a means of earning some pocket money, a way of learning more about the sport or a means of improving their knowledge of the game rules for when they are playing.

Ensure your club takes an active role in developing your coaches. Have mentor coaches in place to assist with advancing young coaches skills and knowledge base.

Ensure coaches get NCCP certified. It also helps for coaches to know if their expenses are paid for; this would include coaching certification fees, honorariums, per diems at tournaments, travel/parking expenses, etc. 

Ways to recruit coaches and officials

Personal contact - there is no argument to the simplest and possibly the most powerful is by power of a personal invitation. Seek out potential people from within the club who have the time and the interest in becoming involved. Generally these might be parents of junior or senior players who want to put back something into the club.

Word of mouth - if the club looks after and supports its current crop of coaches these people then become the best advertisement for the club. Use these people to speak to others in the club and the community and encourage them to talk about the positive aspects of their involvement whenever possible.

Vocational placement - there are for many university, University students studying in the fields of sport and recreation, fitness, sports science or physical education who there is often have a requirement to do work experience/vocational placements in their specialist field with a sporting organization. This is a great opportunity to satisfy their educational needs and your club=s needs by making contact with these institutions and offering their students the chance to do a placement.

Career aspirations - it is now possible to pursue a career in the coaching field. It is also beneficial for aspiring teachers to have a coaching background as many high schools hire based on a coaching need in their school.

Press/media advertising - the local papers, or community radio and television can be an avenue for recruiting, particularly for people who are not necessarily linked to your club but who are looking to get involved in these opportunities. They may be people who are new to the district, who have recently retired as players, or who are looking for a fresh start with another club. Posting on your website, or creating a website may be beneficial to increase the club=s profile in the community.

Local publicity - as most coaches come from within the local community it may be worth considering the strategic placement of posters around community facilities such as schools, community leagues, shopping malls, recreation centers and transportation hubs.

Club requirements of players - the club may want to consider implementing a scheme whereby all senior players are required to take on a coaching role within the youth teams throughout the season. Remember to support, recognize and possibly remunerate these coaches as they may have less motivation when the club places this requirement on its players.