Experiment #2: Building a Youth Coaches Training Program
And the rollercoaster of emotions that went with it
Taking on another project
After 6 months of unemployment, I was tired of working in isolation. I had such an insatiable need to collaborate with others, that in January 2022, I took on my second community building project: building and testing a coaches training program for Bay Area youth ultimate.
At first glance, running a training seems unrelated to building community. Typical trainings involve an instructor rattling off facts and setting up scenarios for students to practice their new skills. But we had another focus in mind. We wanted to create a program where anybody (former frisbee player or not) could come out of it feeling supported to coach.
The hard part about coaching isn’t learning the right information. It’s leading a team and working through its challenges largely on your own. But what if coaches had a support system they could turn to to get ideas for drills, share struggles, and ask for advice? Then, the idea of being a coach no longer feels as daunting. To get more folks to coach youth ultimate, we had to help our future coaches build community.
This was the piece I was most excited to tackle. It was so cool to be part of a project that saw community creation as an integral part of the training’s success. And why stop there? We dreamed up where the program could go next, with monthly coach meetups and an online community. It was all so exciting - until it wasn’t.
An unexpected obstacle
Whenever there is a lull in my life, I start looking for new things, and because each thing seems so interesting, I join everything. Once the initial excitement wears off, however, suddenly I realize I’ve bitten off way more than I can chew.
So like clockwork, this moment of realization hit me a month later. After having no projects on my plate, I was now captaining a winter league team, building this training, helping lead a frisbee team redesign, and conducting user interviews for a company. When I then slapped a new full-time job on top of all that — you can imagine what happened next.
My enthusiasm dropped. I no longer knew why I had been so interested in helping this particular group of people. I didn’t have a strong connection to the coaching community. I’d never even coached before. So when my co-lead also started a new job and had less time to spare than he had thought, that made it even harder for me to care. Forget staying on for the program’s launch in September — could I even make it through the beta test?
I continued onward not because I was excited, but because I felt obligated to keep my word. I hated the idea of disappointing my friend who had shared this opportunity with me. I would complete the beta test that I had signed up for, and then I was out.
The final result
The day had arrived for my co-lead and I to run our very first test of the Youth Coaches Training Program. We had somehow managed to carve out a few hours that month to finalize a light curriculum. It wasn’t anything fancy — just a mix of small group discussions and lectures. As we sat at the park doing last minute prep, I couldn’t help but feel happy that in just 24 hours, this project would be off my plate.
Yet by the end of the day, I felt a twinge of regret for not being able to take this project further. The test was a smashing success. In just 4 hours, the 11 participants came out feeling excited to coach and especially pumped to continue learning from one another.
What made this community building experiment so successful? Even though we hadn’t covered all of the important coaching facts or perfected each exercise, we did accomplish one thing. We created an environment where people experienced the joys of connecting.
Here were some things we did that I think helped people feel like this was a community they wanted to be a part of:
We had no more than 12 people in the class, so names and faces were easier to remember
We did silly icebreakers that forced people to acknowledge each another and talk! (And they were actually eager to try them out because they could use these with their kids)
We learned through mostly small group discussion (And each round, people had to form a new group).
We built in 1-1 listening exercises where people shared their coaching fears and the most impactful moments in their lives.
In those 4 hours, we gave people permission to be curious and learn about one another. Through conversation, people who were once strangers on opposite sides of the field now became peers. They were no longer alone. They had one another for brainstorming, advice, and support.
A bit of reflection
It fascinated me that in just 1 afternoon, I could get hyped about a random community. But when I looked deeper at what moments excited me most, it wasn’t the coaching. It was hearing people say “I’ve seen you on the field before. I’m glad we officially got to meet”. It was watching people share their life stories 1 on 1 and being deep in conversation even as the timer went off. It was seeing different people take the mic as the small group topics shifted from coaching drills to first aid to parent communication, because each of them had unique areas of expertise. At the core, what I loved was seeing people find genuine connection with others - and it is that piece that keeps pulling me into these community building experiments.