There are over 30 million children in the United States today participating in organized youth sports. The youngest kids, usually up to twelve years of age, are often coached by well-intentioned parents with no coaching training or preparation.

          A Field Guide For The Rookie Coach offers realistic, time-tested techniques, systems and tools to new parent-coaches and their youth league administrators.  This book is designed to help the new parent-coach avoid the common pitfalls presented by their lack of coaching experience, enabling all the adults to keep the focus on the child's enjoyment of the experience, and their development as a player.

          A Field Guide For The Rookie Coach will give the new coach a crash course in the management of a youth league team.

• Tips, tools and systems for organization of materials.
• Meet deadlines without introducing stress to the team.
• Guidance on achieving excellent communication with players, with parents and with league administrators.
• Team meetings, with and without parents.
• Proper handling of player injuries.
• Strategies for handling intrusive parents.
• Strategies for dealing with other coaches and even other teams' parents if and when necessary.

          A Field Guide For The Rookie Coach is structured in the tradition of the practical field guide, presented in an easy-to-use format and style that will give coaches, parents and league administrators practical information they can immediately put into practice.

          By implementing the systems, tools and techniques in this book, the rookie coach will quickly gain control of the overwhelmed feeling that often accompanies the responsibility of becoming a coach for the first time.

          My fifteen years of of experience both coaching and parenting four athletic children, combined with time tested advice gathered from hundreds of youth coaches, is all here to help guide the Rookie Coach through that first hectic year.

A Field Guide For The Rookie Coach will include all the organizational tools any new coach will need, accompanied by a CD Rom containing templates for all the forms referred to in the book.

• Sample team rosters
• Phone trees
• Team communications
• Scheduling forms

          The CDR will also include hyperlinks to pertinent youth athletics web sites, providing you with a vast depth of resources for additional study.

          By the time the new parent-coach is finished reading the book and implementing the tools and systems it provides, they'll have the confidence to move forward into a productive, positive season with their focus where it should be - on the kids - their fundamental training and pursuit of passion for the sport.