NFHS Fundamentals of Coaching cheat sheet

Educational athletics treats interscholastic sport as an extension of the classroom; the coach is a teacher first and winning is subordinate to learning and development.

A coaching philosophy states core values and beliefs about athletes, competition, and success, and it functions as the decision rule when goals conflict.

The three learning domains used to define educational outcomes are psychomotor (skills), cognitive (knowledge), and affective (attitudes and values).

Legal duties of a coach include supervision, proper instruction, warning of risks, safe equipment and facilities, matching athletes by maturity and skill, and documentation.

Title IX prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded education programs and requires equal opportunity in athletics participation, benefits, and treatment.

Hazing is prohibited; it is any act that humiliates, degrades, abuses, or endangers a student as a condition of team membership.

The coach's role includes teacher, manager, motivator, role model, and public representative of the school; each role carries ethical obligations.

A preseason parent-athlete meeting covers philosophy, expectations, team rules, eligibility, safety procedures, and communication channels.

The emergency action plan (EAP) is written, venue-specific, posted, rehearsed, and includes EMS access, personnel roles, equipment location, and documentation.

Risk management is a continuous cycle: identify hazards, assess likelihood and severity, apply controls, and monitor and revise.

Equipment is inspected before each use, fitted individually to each athlete, repaired or replaced when defective, and removed from use until safe.

Records kept by the coach include medical histories, consent forms, emergency contacts, eligibility, insurance, attendance, and injury or incident reports; access is restricted.

Supervision requires the coach to be present, visible, and attentive; athletes are never left unsupervised, and supervision level matches activity risk.

Budgeting sequence: identify needs with safety first, estimate costs, follow school purchasing procedures, track expenditures, and inventory equipment.

Transportation management includes verified drivers and vehicles, rosters, departure and return times, parent notification, and supervision that continues off campus.

Contest management includes site preparation, officials, crowd control, medical coverage, a weather and lightning plan, and a post-contest facility check.

Communication includes a sender, message, channel, receiver, and feedback; noise, whether physical or psychological, interferes with the message.

Active listening uses attending, paraphrasing, clarifying questions, and reflection of feelings to confirm the speaker's meaning.

Effective feedback is specific, timely, behavior-focused, and limited to one or two corrections at a time.

Positive reinforcement increases the likelihood a behavior is repeated; corrective feedback targets the behavior, not the person.

Nonverbal signals such as tone, posture, facial expression, eye contact, and proximity carry meaning and must be consistent with the spoken message.

Conflict resolution separates people from the problem, clarifies interests, seeks common ground, and ends with specific agreed next steps.

I-statements describe a behavior and its impact without blame, using the pattern: I feel ___ when ___ because ___.

Team cohesion is built through shared goals, clear roles, fair treatment, and structured team-building interactions.

Parent communication works best with established channels and times, confidentiality, and documentation of concerns and follow-up.

Health-related fitness has five components: cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular strength, muscular endurance, flexibility, and body composition.

FITT stands for Frequency, Intensity, Time, and Type, the four variables used to design a conditioning program.

Training principles include overload (greater demand), progression (gradual increase), specificity (sport-specific adaptation), reversibility (gains lost without training), and recovery.

SAID means Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands; the body adapts to the exact stresses placed on it.

A dynamic warm-up raises muscle temperature, blood flow, and joint mobility; a cool-down aids venous return and reduces blood pooling.

Youth strength training emphasizes technique, supervision, and light-to-moderate loads; maximal lifts are not recommended before physical maturity.

Hydration rule: drink before, during, and after activity; thirst is an unreliable early indicator of dehydration, and urine color is a practical check.

Heat acclimatization takes about 10 to 14 days; practices are progressed gradually, and WBGT or heat index guides work-to-rest ratios.

Overtraining signs include persistent fatigue, sleep disturbance, performance decline, and mood changes; rest is part of the training plan.

The three learning domains are psychomotor (movement skills), cognitive (knowledge and decision-making), and affective (attitudes and values).

Fitts and Posner motor learning stages are cognitive (understanding the skill), associative (refining), and autonomous (automatic performance).

A learning objective states observable, measurable learner behavior with conditions and criteria.

Demonstration is most effective when accurate, brief, repeated, paired with a few cue words, and shown from the angle the athlete will use.

Part-whole teaching breaks a complex skill into parts and then combines them; whole teaching fits simple or discrete skills; whole-part-whole links the game to the part and back.

Blocked practice repeats one skill; random or variable practice mixes skills and conditions, which feels harder but improves retention and transfer.

Teaching styles range from command (teacher-centered) through reciprocal and guided discovery to problem-solving (learner-centered).

Feedback types: intrinsic (from the athlete's senses) versus extrinsic (coach-provided); knowledge of results (outcome) versus knowledge of performance (technique).

Positive transfer occurs when skills share movement elements; negative transfer occurs when a familiar pattern interferes with a new skill.