Online Coaches Ed: The season-ending evaluation

As a long, snowless and hopefully successful season comes to an end, it’s time to reflect on the year. What made it great? What made it fail? What can you do to ensure this season’s lessons go unnoticed?
    While individual progress is important, coaches and parents are another entity, imperative to your season’s achievements, who are worth giving feedback to. Although it may not be easy to critique a coach or father who has put countless hours into your success on the slopes, it may give you an extra boost next season.
    Ski Racing’s Hilary Lund spoke with USSA Director of Alpine Education Finn Gundersen to further explore end-of-the-season evaluations, key parties involved and what you can do to ensure a successful season next year.

Ski Racing: What is the USSA year-end program evaluation?
Finn Gundersen: We emphasize program planning. A part of this is a year-end evaluation.
AS A LONG, snowless and hopefully successful season comes to an end, it’s time to reflect on the year. What made it great? What made it fail? What can you do to ensure this season’s lessons go unnoticed?
    While individual progress is important, coaches and parents are another entity, imperative to your season’s achievements, who are worth giving feedback to. Although it may not be easy to critique a coach or father who has put countless hours into your success on the slopes, it may give you an extra boost next season.
    Ski Racing’s Hilary Lund spoke with USSA Director of Alpine Education Finn Gundersen to further explore end-of-the-season evaluations, key parties involved and what you can do to ensure a successful season next year.

Ski Racing: What is the USSA year-end program evaluation?
Finn Gundersen: We emphasize program planning. A part of this is a year-end evaluation. The reason why we are pushing planning for all clubs, and I mean all clubs, no matter the level [there are only about 45 clubs producing U.S. Ski Team-level athletes] is because the club has to figure out a plan each day. The athlete needs a goal for training. You’ve gone through the entire year and now it’s time for evaluation. Step one is exactly that — evaluation. Then implement a plan and repeat. This can be repeated as often as you can throughout the year, but most clubs only do this come end of the season.
    The “Elite Performance Model” is what the U.S. team uses. Most clubs should have a technical evaluation of the program. In the [Alpine Ski Fundamentals] CD you can look at the five different fundamental criteria. Pre plan — how are they initiating the turns? What is the athlete doing wrong fundamentally? Along with technique is racer management. Did they have too many starts? Not enough starts? Then you have a physical component. Is the dryland training we did in the fall enough? Did they maintain their strength throughout the season? Then there is a psychological component. Do we need to work on imagery? And then you can create criteria from these evaluations and create a plan. This is something that will be developed throughout the years.

SR: What is the role of the head coach in the evaluation process?
FG: Athlete feedback for coaching staff varies by program. A large number of junior programs have anonymous evaluations for the coaching staff. I know a lot of clubs send home evaluations for the parents to fill out as well as for the athletes. That’s another aspect once you go beyond the technical evaluations. The head coach then should drive the evaluation process. Evaluation of the activities of the club and the evaluations of the coaches are things the head coach should head up. In some cases, a self-evaluation can be worthwhile too. Year-end discussions with the coaches then should be implemented after the evaluations. The board then evaluates the head coach. That should be built into their annual plan.

SR: Where does a survey of the parents come into the evaluation process?
FG: This is one of the most difficult issues in any sporting event. This is why we created the CD called “Successful Sport Parenting.” Parents are important to the triangle — parents, coaches and athletes all make up the sport, and the triangle would fail with a missing piece. But it should be done, we would urge it. Were they a positive force? A negative force? Do we need more volunteers? We urge it, but it’s difficult.

SR: What are some tricks implementing the feedback into next season for coaches, parents and athletes?
FG: At Burke Mountain Academy, I always had a monthly newsletter and then implemented a year-end evaluation by different ages and genders. It was a great form of communication between the coaches, athletes and parents. Within a club, the head coach should write a summary. That summary should be printed and distributed among all members of the club. Communication is essential for a team’s success. Distributing a plan is a process after evaluation that’s key to a club’s success, and I think that clubs should do more of it. Take the time and effort to do it. There are a lot of clubs that are following through with this process and seeing the results. A year-end evaluation and implementation is critical to improving a club. We have to do more and more. I urge people to do it.