As I drove down the road and went past a restaurant and saw a sign for Taco Tuesday, my mind started to wander back to my coaching days and how you could use a catchy phrase like that in coaching. George Raveling, whom I worked for at Iowa and USC had a “Daily Dozen” group of fundamental drills that we did every single day, and I always thought it was a great way of aiding the players stay focused on what the purpose of practice truly was.
Many coaches have an “emphasis of the day” when planning practice. Helping capture someone’s concentration is hard at times, and to come up with a unique way of helping a team focus on the necessities of building success by being totally prepared can be challenging.
With that said, I started keeping a list of unique days for practice planning, with the idea of attempting to build a complete list of fundamentals throughout the week. Here is a possible list that could be used, with the knowledge that there are a million ideas you could come up with that could keep your players and staff engaged.
MONDAY
Mental Monday
Emphasis on the mental approach/concentration
Man Monday
Emphasis on man-to-man defensive principles
Movement Monday
Emphasis on players always knowing who they are matched up with.
Working on creating mismatches at the offensive end
