Advances In Providing Athlete Feedback Through Tech
Every coach knows the long list of reasons why athletes need to keep playing sports, but do we really understand the reasons that athletes stop?
Through research, I discovered that 70% of kids drop out of youth sports by age 13.
Included in the top 4 reasons why athletes drop out is that they have a lack of confidence in their ability to play the sport. It all comes down to the retention of feedback. Think of the last meeting you were a part of. Really, stop to think about what exactly was said.
If you were handed a blank sheet of paper, how much could you write down with specifics? If you are like most people, the paper would be pretty empty. Now add adolescence, peer pressure, and social media to the mix. These factors make it pretty difficult for athletes to remember and apply the verbal feedback they were given after practice or before a big game.
Until recently, there was not much a sports organization could do to help this…
Now with tech solutions such as SkillShark, sports organizations can evaluate athletes using their mobile device or tablet instead of using pen and paper. By making this one simple change to the evaluation process, sports organizations can now quickly and easily provide detailed feedback to each individual athlete after an evaluation.
What we like best about SkillShark is being able to provide instant feedback. Before SkillShark we used the old-school method of pen and paper. Now with SkillShark, we can view results right after the evaluation is complete. We wouldn’t be without it.
Derek Bloski. SHA Hockey Coach
What Does a Player Report Card Include?
- Athletes score on each skill evaluated.
- Average team score on each skill evaluated (optional)
- Athletes overall rank (optional)
- Comments to provide additional feedback on specific skills
- Video footage is provided to show players their execution of a skill.
Player report cards in SkillShark
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SkillShark Testimonials
Explore how SkillShark has transformed careers and organizations through real-life success stories. Join our community and streamline your evaluations today.
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The process of athlete evaluations used to take us 2-3 hours. Now, it is completed in under 20 minutes with SkillShark.
Tyler Stahl
Notre Dame Academy
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SkillShark is the best money I’ve spent to help me manage my records as an International Recruiter
Jack Cameron
CJFL Football Recruiter
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SkillShark has been an incredible tool for me to evaluate players, set benchmarks and develop training plans.
Dean Toles
Coach
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SkillShark has been an invaluable tool for our high-performance tryouts.
Justin Dee
High Performance Director (Delta Region of USA Volleyball), Head Volleyball Coach (Belhaven University)
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I now have statistics and information at my fingertips I wouldn’t be without.
Scott Hudson
Head Coach — Diamondbacks
FAQ — Providing Athlete Feedback
In order for athletes to meet the goals they have set for themselves, they must be provided with feedback along the way specifying areas they are excelling at (i.e., skills, technique, character) and what they need to work on.
Through athlete feedback, players can gain a deeper understanding of how they are progressing throughout the season. This acts as a catalyst for personal growth, where athletes now have the knowledge they need to refine their existing skills and develop new ones.
The more feedback is provided to athletes throughout the sports season, the better athletes can understand their progression.
• Individual Scores This can be entered as a subjective score (ranking on a scale of 0-5 or 0-10), a single score, multi score on any skill assessed.
• Team average This allows for the player to see how they fare against the team average on each skill that was assessed.
• Comments Where applicable, comments should be added under specific skills to provide more direction to the athlete.
• Developmental Resources If an athlete scores below a certain score on a skill (which will be set by the coach), include a library of developmental resources at the bottom of the report. Developmental resources will link out to coaching videos or documents created by you (or a third-party resource) to guide athletes towards further improvement.
To find out more about how you can incorporate all of the above into your next athlete feedback report, check out SkillShark
When using an app to provide athlete feedback, like SkillShark Athlete Evaluation Software, individual reports are automatically created once scores are inputted in the app (using any iOS device or Android). Therefore, all that’s left for coaches to do is directly send each of their athletes a copy of the report via email.
As an engineer from the UofS, I’ve spent 30 years focused on optimizing industrial processes like mines or manufacturing facilities… combine that with my love of playing or coaching competitive softball the majority of my life, that’s where I saw the need for SkillShark. I took over the U18 Softball program in 2016 and saw the evaluation process was archaic and the way gathered data that was being used to decide team placement could be vastly improved.
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