One of the things I enjoy most about the off-season is the individual workout time you have with a player. Not only can your work directly with a player but it is the perfect time and environment to grow and improve a relationship. Players never feel more special than when a coach gives them individual attention. With that comes trust and more open communication. It's a major reason I was thrilled that the NCAA created some guidelines that allow us to work individually with players in the summer. Certainly skill development is improved but so do more important things like learning and understanding each other at a higher level.
Along those lines, I'd like to share some guidelines form Bill Walsh (from "Finding The Winning Edge") on working with players that speaks to teaching as well as relationships:
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Have answers
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Be an expert in your specialized area
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Isolate the skills and the techniques that are
essential to each position
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Develop a plan on how best to teach these skills
and techniques
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Treat each player as a unique person
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Demonstrate sincere interest in each player
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Gain the players’ confidence by working with
each athlete to help him reach his full potential by enhancing his level of
abilities
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Determine how each player best responds to
instruction
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Be sensitive to and flexible with the players’
moods and demeanors while teaching and coaching
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Search for and implement new ways to teach and
impart information and to get and maintain the attention level of the players
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Move on quickly to a different method of
handling the situation if your current approach to dealing with and teaching
your players is not eliciting the intended level of results
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Exhibit strength and persistence in your
dealings with your players. Hold your players to the highest expectations
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Be personal with your players, but not too
familiar. Excessive familiarity, in a misguided attempt to be socially accepted
by your players, will prevent you from fully developing their performance
potential
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Avoid attempting to communicate with your
players in their vernacular or their 1990s dialect. Be natural in all of your
dealings. Anything else will be perceived as phony
