I’m in “newly tilled ground” here with this post! After 41 years in high school coaching, a team I coached got to experience getting measured for a State Championship ring! How verrrrrry cool!!! Since this blog is mostly a “mentoring/helping young(er) coaches” site, I thought that someone might need to know how to address this situation… or something similar to it.
First off, (Dads— don’t hate me!, but) I would get your Team Mom and a couple of her assistants to sit in with you. I also asked 4-5 of our seniors to join me when the Josten’s rep visited our school. Think about it: It’s their ring! They should have input on what its design looks like. The adults were there for guidance.
I wanted the moms to temper enthusiasm when it came to picking the bling! Kids haven’t yet learned the “cost” of things. Mom knows what a budget looks like and can curb enthusiasm when the players start asking for 22 carat gold and/or real diamonds! This ain’t the NFL and the parents are going to be the ones paying for the ring!! By the way, the three moms I invited were all moms of seniors who were invited.
I guided” the conversation in terms of some basic things that they’d want on the ring… such as STATE CHAMPIONS prominently displayed plus the name of our school. The adults listened as the guys looked through the Josten’s display case and we helped narrow things down. After 30-40 minutes, we had a consensus of what everyone wanted the ring to look like. Everyone left the meeting happy.
Committees can be very helpful in making decisions that the head coach doesn’t want to make on his own. I think the important things are that everyone needs to know what his/her role is and… WHO is going to be the “final decision maker.” In this case, it was me. But, I thought everyone felt good about our final design because everyone was allowed input.
Head coaches: be willing to listen. Don’t discount anyone’s idea. I think it’s important that people feel like their opinions are listened to. It increases their motivation and commitment level because they’ve invested something into the final decision.
