Coaching to Win with Cell Phone Video

    A proven coaching method is the use of film, video, and now cell 

phones. It is often too time consuming and equipment burdensome 

to video and watch practices and games of the whole team, much 

less individual athletes. With cell phones, individual video can be 

taken advantage of during practices. Just put your athletes in groups 

of two or more with at least one cell phone with video capabilities.

 Have the athletes video each other doing key skills. For example, 

serving a volleyball, starts in track, free throws in basketball. The 

replay can be watched immediately in the moment and 

improvement witnessed, corrections to make obvious, and practice 

time fully utilized. It is like putting a coach into every group’s 

hands.

Text Talk: Stories from the Gym
The 6th grade girls practiced their free throws through video in groups of two at the beginning of each practice. The cell phones were put away during the first water break. The remainder of the practice was in large groups. We had our best free throw percentage since I’ve been coaching, which is 13 years.


Below, a motivated volleyball player reviews her serve, which she had a friend video on her cell phone so she could look at it later.