Coaching Technology is Changing
What’s the Next Great Advancement in Coaching Technology?
June 10, 2020 - Written by Rick Butler
At its core, a user friendly technology is supposed to render the user’s (worker or coach) skill set obsolete. This principle should create an even playing field, whereby computer abilities and acumen for technology is replaced by ease and efficiency. The only limits should be bound by one’s creative imagination.
Silicon Valley generally sees technology trends reinventing and disrupting their space about every ten plus years. That general time frame seems also to hold true with technologies for coaching. Looking back at my own career in coaching (Beginning in 1986), I personally, have been in the trenches to experience many great breakthroughs that make our profession a continual evolution of technological efficiencies.
As we enter the mid-way point of 2020 an advancement is coming, actually it’s already here. And, just like every past wave, the vast majority of coaches phase into the new “disruptor” in three cycles of statements:
- “What we’ve been doing has been just fine”
- “I see that new thing, we’ll try it, but I’ll keep the old too, just in case”
- “We are fully integrating into the new technology”
The timeline of where we have been
Since entering the sport of football as a coach 35 years ago, I’ve continually heard, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, applied to various aspects of the game. There’s usually two schools of thought to that old saying:
- “I Agree”
- “If it ain’t broke, break it”
The adage also applies to coaching tools and technologies. Since game film study was introduced into football by Paul Brown between the 1940s and 1950s, there has been a race to break with the old and push to improve coaching efficiencies through technology.
The two greatest advancements in Coaching Technology - to date
- One - VHS:
In 1986 I was a graduate assistant at a 1AA (Now FCS) football program. We exclusively dealt in 16 mm film. After that season we began to receive a combination of VHS and 16 mm recruiting films. Coaches loved the control and clarity that the film offered on the old reel loaded projectors and loathed the very thought and use of VHS. Needless to say, the coaching community was moving into the modern age, albeit kicking and screaming. In 1987 I got my first high school coaching job, we were exclusively VHS.
As coaches, we were reticent to move to VHS, primarily because of the convenient excuse of, “16 mm is what we know and what we do”. VHS was the unknown. The unknown turned out to be a positive. We soon saw the cost savings and conveniences that the new technology afforded us. What we may have given up in picture quality was quickly outpaced by the speed and inexpensive cost of game tape duplication and machine affordability. By the early 1990s the technology improved, costs kept going down, and the memory of 16 mm went the way of the horse and buggy.
- Two - Exchange:
Near the end of the first decade of the 2000s, and with the advent of digital, coaches were ready to move into the next great coaching technology advancement - Exchange. At last, gone were the days of mailing, meeting, and driving for the “swap”. At last, the ease and convenience of simply sending and receiving a game, to and from an opponent, had become as easy as an email.
Forecasting the next great advancement in Coaching Technology
Not too long after the breakthrough of the digital exchange, technology oriented coaches began making demands for more advancements. They clamored for the digital video piece to combine with data. Computer oriented coaches had long since eliminated legal pads in favor of Excel Spreadsheets so they could crunch the data garnered from video. Coaching staffs that had people that were adept at spreadsheet manipulation had an advantage. The demand for improvement grew as high school coaches visited D1 College programs. There, they witnessed in-house networks where the desired combination of technologies (video and data) was already being widely utilized. However, these D1 tools far exceeded the budget that any lower level program could afford.
A void in the market was recognized and then seized upon by some enterprising college students in Nebraska. At an affordable price, the advent of a cloud based video analysis tool for H. S. and small college coaches was born. At last, the computer oriented coaches got their tool. The tool?: Basically, a spreadsheet placed underneath a video player. The manual manipulation of the numbers was still based on the acumen of the user, but at last, the gap was bridged between video and data. Again, at a somewhat inexpensive price point.
We’re getting to the next great advancement, …hold on
At its core, a user friendly technology is supposed to render the user’s (worker or coach) skill set obsolete. This principle should create an even playing field, whereby computer abilities and acumen for technology is replaced by ease and efficiency. The only limits should be bound by one’s creative imagination. Yet, we fall far short of this basic technology premise with the current offering from the incumbent company currently utilized by the majority of coaches. Unfortunately, we are still seeing technology through the lens of a 1980s 16 mm film. The coach can only rely on what’s currently offered. It’s hard to see the limitations, because he has yet to be introduced to new possibilities.
Think Different
Those two words are attributed to the brilliant and world changing ad campaign from Apple in the 1990s. That cue is what will spark the advent of the next great advancement in coaching technology.
What’s holding us back? Quite frankly, it’s the spreadsheet portion of the operation. The standard technology, currently offered on the coaching video analysis platform, is as only as effective as the user. Summarizing, from the many and the growing critics on the use of spreadsheets, it can be said:
“This technology, which calls for skills that only a few power users have, leaves coaching staffs vulnerable if those users leave for other jobs. Because users often do not share techniques or best practices (and other staff members do not want to learn it), there can be considerable inconsistency and duplication of effort.” Subsequently, a technology based around a spreadsheet, again is as only as good as that of the user’s abilities.
That next great advancement? Yes, it’s already here
It’s like we are back in the old mentality of the days of 16 mm game film, and VHS game tape was just beginning to take hold. Then and now, we are living in the old technology, yet we were being prepared for a great advancement. Note: This same pattern was repeated when DVD’s were introduced as the disruptor to VHS.
Introducing the utilization of Data Management Tools
I know, doesn’t sound very sexy. At the core of this coaching software, the use of Data Management Tools (DMT) eliminates the need to be proficient and knowledgeable in how to use, sort, and manipulate data. DMT eases the pain of inputting data from video sources into a data warehouse, therefore transforming, summarizing and aggregating the information a coach needs into a format suitable for in-depth analysis.
Unlike a spreadsheet, DMT should empower the user to move at the speed of their imagination, not at the hindrance of their personal technology skill set limitations. Coaches want a tool that is easy to use, intuitive to manipulate, and efficient enough to eliminate the time and monotony of staring at cells and punching in keys.
What others are saying:
DMT creates a better environment for storing and keeping track of data when working with large amounts of information. They are used for easy retrieval and updating of data, efficiency, data consistency, data integrity, and speed.
No, the use of DMTs are not new for users in other fields. However, it is a new development for a coach in the world of football. It gives the coach back the power to create, not to learn the intricacies of sorting and knowing the formulas necessary for spreadsheets. DMTs provide the coaching staff with the ability to reach the limits of their imagination. Now, any coach can easily tag data, create searches, generate one-step production of playlists, and mine valuable data. It is an intuitive processes that leads to strategies that can take advantage of an opponent’s weaknesses. All this, while not being limited to the one coach on staff where we find ourselves saying: “Ask him, he knows how to do that stuff”.
Why aren’t the “other guys” incorporating these tools into their offering for coaches? Especially when DMT is not proprietary and relatively simple to implement? Because the skill set of understanding the nuances of spreadsheet manipulation, and the small minority of coaches that are proficient at it, creates a greater need for dependency on that company’s other money making buckets - like Assist. That thought process simply does not create a model of putting the coaching client first, it does however, serve as an effective “up-sale” that the coach’s program feels compelled to fall for.
The next great coaching technology advancement is here already - TeamXStream
It’s good to remember the past when looking to the future. The unknown turned out to be a positive. A new way led to a think different mentality. That made all the difference.
Ultimately, TeamXStream is a superior product. Don’t hesitate to contact us and find out why. TEAMXSTREAM