Familiarizing yourself with the features & benefits of an athlete evaluation app, like SkillShark, is a task in and of itself. One question that may quickly come to your mind is, “How often can SkillShark be used throughout the season?”

From tryouts to mid-season evaluations to clinics, SkillShark is a multi-faceted tool with many use cases for coaches. This blog discusses the 5 main ways SkillShark can be used during your season, providing you with real-time insights at every point along the way.

1) Tryouts

Ditch the pen-and-paper and digitize your evaluation process. Use a single athlete evaluation app to:

• Create & customize an evaluation templates.
• Score players (and invite evaluators to do the same).
• Instantly rank & compare players using data from SkillShark’s pre-generated reports—identifying top players for your season ahead.

Identify top players

2. Mid-season Evaluations

Use this as a halfway check-in point to assess athletes, scoring athletes on the same skills they were evaluated on during tryouts.

• Create an evaluation event for “Year-end Evaluations” on SkillShark.
• Score athletes.
• View evaluation data in SkillShark’s individual development reports.
• Answer the questions: How have they progressed so far? What steps can they take to continue improving throughout the season on these skills?

For instance, after evaluating one of your soccer players, SkillShark’s individual development report indicates that their endurance has slightly decreased since tryouts (based on a ranking scale from 1-10). With this information now known, you integrate more agility drills during practices to help improve that player’s endurance.

Individual development report

3. Training Camps & Clinics

As training camps & clinics are focused on mentorship, skills development, and mental training, use SkillShark to:

• Score athletes on a number of skills each day at your training camp/clinic.
• Use evaluation data from SkillShark to provide athletes with detailed feedback to enhance future performance. (Hint: Player report cards come in handy here).
• Help instil motivation and confidence in athletes.
  • For example, suppose after 3 days of a soccer training camp, one of your athletes has massively improved their coordination. On Day 1 of the training camp, they scored 6.7 on coordination and by Day 3, they scored 8.8 on coordination (*Both scores entered and tracked on SkillShark).
  • With this data at your fingertips, you can now communicate this improvement with your athlete, helping to boost their confidence.

4. Showcases

With SkillShark’s live event leaderboards, make any showcase engaging for parents & other fans in the bleachers while generating healthy competition among players.

As scores are entered by evaluators, data is displayed instantly on the event leaderboard and players are ranked accordingly based on their scores.

Note: Scores are generated from weighted reports (i.e., A weighted report is created for Top Combine Athletes. Metrics related to “Combine Skills” are evaluated, such as 40-yard Dash, shuffle, and broad jump.) As evaluators & coaches enter these metrics on SkillShark, each player’s score and their respective ranking will be displayed on the leaderboard.

Weighted report

Event leaderboards

5. Post-season Evaluations

As the season comes to an end, make this an opportunity to evaluate athletes and provide them with any final feedback.

• Create an evaluation event for “Year-end Evaluations” on SkillShark.
• Score athletes.
• View evaluation data in SkillShark’s individual development reports.
• Answer the questions: What skills have they improved on throughout the season and what can they continue to work on for next year?

For instance, after evaluating one of your soccer players, SkillShark’s individual development report indicates that their endurance, coordination, and agility has all increased since mid-season evaluations (based on a ranking scale from 1-10). With this information known, you can now encourage that player to keep working on these skills for next season!

Individual development report

Wrapping Up

Knowledge is power. And in the case of coaching, a greater number of athlete evaluations allows you to find-tune your coaching strategy. From integrating different drills into practices, increasing the frequency of practices, or even adjusting player positions, leverage the evaluation data from SkillShark to your advantage.