Module 3 - Attire, Equipment & Preparation

In this module, we will cover:

1. Attire Expectations & Provided-Equipment

2. Playbook Review: Offense + Defense/Drills

3. How to craft a Practice Plan

• Next Module: Module 4 - Developmentally Appropriate Practices (DAP)

• Previous Module: Module 2 - Expectations, Responsibilities & Roles

• See All Student Coaching Training Modules

If you have any questions, please email training@nextlevelsports.com.

0:00 What's up, Next Level Coaches? Bradley here today to talk about attire, equipment and Preparation in Module 3 of our Student coach training.

0:10 All right, first off, let's talk about your appearance. What you're going to be wearing every single next level Sunday, okay? You are going to be issued a next level coach's shirt. My guy over here to the right is repping his. Please wear that every single weekend. If it's cold or raining, it's totally fine. If you work, if you wear your high school or college branded jacket or hoodie, we just act that you look the part and look professional out there. Wear next level brand stuff if and when possible. For the lower half, you can wear shorts or joggers. With athletic shoes. You are not allowed to wear slides, sandals, slippers.

0:28 Wear athletic shoes. Some of my guys wear cleats out there. That's totally fine. And again, just a add on here. No headphones, no hoods. Look like you want to be there. Look the part.

0:49 Each and every one of your teams will be issued a bag which is going to be located at midfield. So when you arrive every day, head up there, grab your team back. That's going to have all of your flags in it, okay? So at the end of the day, when your game's done, return that bag in the middle of the field. So your site director has all the equipment. And also located at midfield is going to be a ball bag and some cones if available. Grab a few of those, grab your playbook, grab your whiteboard, which are going to be midfield, and get ready to go during practice. Keep in mind, it is absolutely mandatory to have a hard copy of something on you when coaching.

1:16 Whether it's a playbook or a whiteboard and you're drawing up your own plays, there needs to be a visual for the kids to see. You can't just be out there yelling at them where to line up and where to go. Have something for them to look at. 

1:46 For example, here's our offensive playbook. There's two different variations. We have our offensive playbook and our defensive and drills playbook. This is a quick snapshot offensive side. Okay, in there's going to be two different sections of pass plays and run place. Simple color association. Anything with red on the bottom. Red stands for run. 

2:37 All your run plays are going to have a red border. All your pass plays are going to be in purple. Pass, purple, red run. Moving on, we have our defense and drills playbook. So here you have some explanation of defensive positions, some coverage explanations, some blitzing explanations, and most importantly, this is going to help you a lot in your practice segments. We have over a dozen drills in there that you can run. They're ordered from most simple to most complex. Hey, new to this year, we've included video examples for most, if not all of our drills. So here we have the angle flagpole.

2:39 We have a QR code on the bottom that you can scan to watch that drill video setup. So here's a quick little teaser of what one of those videos looks like. Players big and zag to work on their agility and body control on the do five cones and a ball is all. Get ready to stay low backward and be explosive. Set five cones in a W shape with 5 yards of width and a 45 degree angle for one another. Declare the furthest left or right as your starting landmark for your defender. Your defenders will line up at the designated starting cone. Remember, the coach is going to be positioned horizontally to guide the defender through. We have plenty more with that camera.

3:01 Lastly, we're asking you to come prepared with a practice plan every single day. This is a key source of accountability to your team. How much time do you have for practice? Always keep that in mind when making a practice plan. Most of our sites there's an hour practice segment dedicated before your games, which is in all honesty more like 50 minutes once you get flags on kids and everybody shows up. So keep that in mind. And some of our locations are 30 minute practice segments, which again is more like 20 minutes once the flags are on and everybody gets there. Okay, so every morning on next level, Saturdays or Sundays, when you wake up, you're eating your breakfast, take five minutes, go to the drill book, Pick one or two flag bowling drills you want to work on.

3:34 Grab one or two offensive or defensive skill building drills you want to work on. Figure out who your rotations are going to be, grab some plays you want to work on that day and come ready to go with the plan. Don't just show up, throw the ball, play catch and play grab ass. We're not going to do that in the next level. Come prepared to maximize every minute of practice. On the right, here's a little screenshot of a minute by minute practice plan that you can follow that are one of our site directors created a few years ago that I think is a great template from hey, the first five minutes we're simply putting on flags and getting warmed up, running a few flag pulling drills, working on some skill development.

4:02 Hey, we're going to identify who's in group A and group B more on that to come in the rotation section, the plays we're going to run and then we're going to pack up and head to our game.

4:08 So come prepared and come ready to go every single day. That's it for this module. Email trainingextlevelsports.com if you have any questions.