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| Sophomore Rachel Aiello (right) with Head Coach Geoff Braun |
A few years ago I read an account of a Division III football coach who checks in with all 95 of his athletes at practice, every day. It was often as simple as, "Hey Jimmy, good to see you," but he made sure all 95 were accounted for.
By comparison, I wasn't sure I talked to all 15 of our volleyball players every day.
That football coach probably had a lot of time to dedicate to his team, an incredibly organized mind, or both. The rest of us could be helped by a system.
Take Amber Warners. who's responsibilities at Division III Calvin College are 75% as a classroom professor and just 25% as a volleyball coach. Still, she's won two national championships, and her system for checking in with her players is simple:
"On Monday's I try to touch base with every single freshman. They're warming up, and I will walk to somebody and ask how her weekend was. Tuesday's are for the sophomores, Wednesday's are for the juniors, Thursday's are for the seniors and Friday's are for anybody else I feel like I need to touch base with. And it could be one minute, but at least they've had me pick them out and say, "Hey, I loved it when you did this," or "Hey, one of the things I want you to work on is this." That's something I'm very, very intentional about."
On a large scale this might be called a "college retention strategy." I think it's just good coaching.