02.15.13Annals of Coaching: Tony Lepore and World Class Preparation for Practice
Working on a fascinating article this week. I’m watching some of the best youth soccer coaches in the country and “Teach Like a Champion”-ing them. That is, trying to describe what they do that makes them so exceptional so that others may copy.
A few weeks ago I watched an amazing practice run by Tony Lepore, who’s the U15 Boys National Team coach. You’ll have to wait for the article for the full download but check out the snapshot I took from his practice (it appears below). Not only had Tony planned what he was going to do at his practice but he had set up, before it started, the stations for all three activities he was going to do that day. So, for example, when I watched him, he had his boys play 3 v 1 in a box for 20 minutes. And this was the second drill in practice, starting about 30 minutes in. But before he even started Tony had laid out the field for all three of his drills. In this picture you can see his 3 v 1 grids. 1) There’s a ball waiting in every grid. Let’s face it, some dizzying percentage of time in the average soccer practice is wasted looking for or chasing after a ball. And that percentage is probably not in the single digits. Tony’s practice was a monument to well-spent time because, among other things, he had planned where the balls should be when. 2) The color of the cones in his grids is also not accidental: The first grid is orange. The one next to it is white. After that another orange one. Result? Players were never confused about which boundary was their’s. Less downtime; more productive touches for budding stars.
Note the soccer balls already in place and the color coding of the cones. Stations for ALL THREE of Tony’s drills were meticulously set up in advance.
Last fascinating thought: A lot of people think that this kind of heroic preparation somehow makes a practice feel “mechanical.” That is, it makes a coach “tight” and “too structured” and not responsive to his players. But in fact the opposite is true. Since Tony had all of this set up in advance, he was able to circulate as players arrived and began warming up, greeting each warmly and presenting a relaxed and caring demeanor. And that tone endured. Tony’s practice was incredibly efficient. But it never felt rushed and it always seemed to have time for people.
More to come…
