Hungry Dog Sports Academy

Coach Spencer shares his coaching philosophy & tips for running athlete evaluations while discussing how SkillShark streamlined the process.

1. Can you tell us a little bit about Hungry Dogs?

Hungry Dog Sports Academy, based in Delta, British Columbia, specializes in bringing elite-level training to young athletes aged 6+. This type of training is often a missed opportunity for kids in Canada; therefore, Hungry Dog Sports Academy is filling in this gap.

2. What is your coaching philosophy?

My coaching philosophy is to compete and not give up on yourself. That can be misconstrued as having to “win” all the time, which isn’t always the case. Rather, it is a belief system in yourself that you don’t have to give up.

We have a saying at Hungry Dogs, “Hungry Dogs don’t quit.” When we are training these young athletes, we are running them through elite-level techniques with footwork training, running abilities, etc.

As kids do, they often get tired and defeated. Therefore, we tell them, “This is just your mind telling you that you’re done. Give it one more rep.” This saying helps our athletes get through mental challenges.

3. What kind of evaluations do you conduct at Hungry Dog Sports Academy?

I mainly focus on the football side of testing and gathering data through these young athletes. Some evaluation drills I run are fort-yard dash, push-ups, or squat jumps until failure.

I use the athlete evaluation tool through SkillShark to score players and get instant player insights from the evaluation drills I run.

4. What do you enjoy most about using SkillShark?

SkillShark allows us to take quantifiable data and provide parents with tangible assets, allowing them to track the results their child is getting from our program.

With most academies, parents can only see their child developing if they frequently attend practices. However, what sets Hungry Dogs apart is that we can send parents a tangible report. For example, “Suzie first started running a 4-yard dash at 7.9 seconds. Here we are two months later, and her time is now 7.1 seconds.” When you can show parents that progress using SkillShark’s reports, it’s pretty cool.

5. Does sending athlete reports offer any advantages when giving feedback?

Sometimes when you are talking to kids, especially depending on their age, your verbal feedback goes over their heads. You don’t know if they fully grasp what you are telling them. But when you can show a kid their progression over a time period, you can see them actually understanding what you are telling them. You can see the smile on their faces because they see they are getting better rather than just being told they are getting better.

6. What was the biggest benefit of switching to SkillShark?

Retaining the data is the biggest benefit to us. Prior to SkillShark, we would be making notes on our phones or paper, and when we later went to refer to those notes, it was often hard to locate.

Being able to have all that data at my fingertips is great. If I want to know, “How is Sally doing?” I don’t have to fumble through my notes. Rather, all the data is right there for me to access on the SkillShark app.

We also have the added benefit of SkillShark’s detailed athlete reports. I can review these reports with my athletes & their parents, showing them their progressions or areas for improvement. This is important for me because otherwise, I would have to rely on memory to answer the question “How is this kid performing?”

7. What advice would you give to other coaches for conducting evaluations?

Instant collection of data is super important. Each time I conduct an evaluation, the scores are immediately recorded in SkillShark and saved in reports for future reference. When it comes time to see an athlete’s progression, I can look at a player development report and see, “This kid has caught more passes than before during this catching drill.”