A Systematic Way to Help "High Maintenance" Players Be Successful

What are you doing to help the "high maintenance" players?

A "high maintenance" player is a someone who does one or more of the following:

• tardy to class

• forgets workout clothes

• misses workouts

• classroom referral

• not passing classes

The easiest thing to do is to kick this kid to the curb and move on. 

But we are coaches for a reason.  We coach because we want to have a positive impact on young adults and help them, lead them, and show them they are capable of doing better.  They just have to be shown how - this is where a coach steps in.  You are very important to this kids life. . . you just may be this kids last hope.

If you look closely and evaluate the "high maintenance" players activities, you will notice he or she repeats the behaviors because that is their habit.  Use sports to change that.

Be a Better Person

If you want the player to be on time, be prepared, be respectful, and study - we are basically asking the player to be a better person and make better decisions.  Use the athletic program to help change these habits and be a better person.

To start, it is imperative for you to have a crystal clear idea of what your program is all about and what you want it to represent.  You also need to establish standards of excellence by which the program will operate.  You can read this and other ways to develop a Winning Process by reading the post below. 

The second step to get the "high maintenance" player to change his ways is to give him a ticket each and every day for his habits that are not meeting the standard of excellence.  Always talks about the behavior that is not acceptable, never mention you are mad or disappointed in the student.  You must attack the habits - not the kid.

To make it fair, do this for all players in the off-season program.  Hold everyone to the same standard of excellence.  That is how you build a team.

Write a Ticket

Any coach in the program can write a ticket.  Once the ticket is written, it is placed in a mesh paper basket sitting on a table in the coaches office.  When the athletic period begins, the coach assigned as the "enforcer" will take the tickets with him to the workout.  About 10 minutes before the class is over, the "enforcer" will call out all the players who have a ticket.  The players all report to the goal line for their reminders on how to be a better person.

Here is what the ticket looks like. You can get 3 tickets made out of one sheet of paper.

Now you are thinking, what does the player do after the "enforcer" talks to him?

Well, we provide the player or players with "an opportunity for improvement."

Never call it punishment.  And never push a kid so hard that they faint or any other medical emergency.  The coach monitoring the players must keep an eye out for dizziness, too much sweat, or the player stopped sweating as well as breathing etc.  Be smart about what you do with the players.  We just want to get their attention and do a little extra work - we do not want to injure them or cause a medical emergency.

At times, a kid was huffing and puffing so much, we just had him walk to the finish line.  If that was too much we had them stand there and while getting water from the trainer they had to cheer on the others.  Again, get the point across to the kid.  Don't hurt them.

Opportunities for Improvement

Here are the opportunities for improvement that started in the off-season and then we continued them throughout the year.  Once this is established - build on it. 

The name we game the opportunities for improvement were "air raids."  Because the players look like dive bombs as they go up and down across the field.  

The Log

The third action is after the class is over, the enforcer will drop off the tickets on the position coach's desk.  If the player is a two way player, the primary position coach will get the ticket.  The position coach will then document the ticket in a folder that he has for each player.  After a player is given 5 tickets he will then be given a contract in which he will focus on eliminating just one bad habit.  You can not change a kid overnight.  Help the player break their bad habits one at a time.

When the contract is made, the position coach now has to note it on the Contract Deficiency Log.  This is your documentation that shows you are helping the player and doing what you can.  Here is a sample of what the log looks like.

Each high maintenance player has the standards of excellence explained to him, given examples of how things are to be done, provided a folder for documentation in which his position coach will have his post season evaluation, his tickets, and his log.  You must see improvement on one bad habit a week.  

If a player continues to not meet the standard, the head coach needs to pull him aside and just talk.  Get to the bottom of it.  But in the end, after much work, it is unfortunate but some players just can not and do not want to meet the standard of excellence and will be removed from the program. 

In Closing

I hope you get an idea or two on how to help a "high maintenance" player grow as person, be reminded of the standard, and provide individual counseling in the hopes he can improve one habit a week.  Most of the time, the player makes it.  But there are some players that simply remove themselves from the program because they do not meet the standard on a consistent basis.

Like these ideas?  Want to implement them? 

• Post Season Player Evaluation

• Be a Better Person Ticket

• Deficiency Log

• Player Contract for Improvement

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