Library / Coach's Library

Keep the Ball: Coaching Blog That Respects the Coach's Job

Premier Skills' blog splits coach education, player development, and tactics — cleanly.

Cam Jolley

Cam Jolley

Co-Founder & Academy Coach, Coach Central

Keep the Ball is one of those blogs that clearly gets written by people who coach, and for me that shows up in the fact that it separates coaching the coach from developing the player from the tactics themselves.

Why the categories tell you something

It splits into coach education, player development, and tactical, and honestly that structure alone tells you the people behind it think clearly. Those are three different jobs. A lot of coaches collapse them — they think a good tactic is a good session is good development, and it is not. The tactic is what you want to see. The session is the experience you build so players can find it. The development is what the player actually walks away able to do. Keeping them separate keeps you honest.

The coach-education side is the one I value most

The pieces on standards, preparation, and readiness are the ones I come back to, because that is the part of the job nobody hands you a manual for. I already believe you can hold really high standards and a psychologically safe environment at the same time — those are not opposites, they need each other — and good coach-education writing is where you get practical ways to actually do both instead of just saying it.

Read one coach-education post from Keep the Ball and one thing about your own standards. Write down one standard you hold and one thing you do to make it safe for players to fail while chasing it. If you can't name the second, that's this week's work.

  • Coaching the coach, developing the player, and choosing tactics are three separate jobs — don't collapse them.
  • The unglamorous coach-education content (standards, preparation, readiness) is often the most useful.
  • High standards and psychological safety are not a trade-off; look for the practical 'how' of holding both.
  • Keep the Ball (Premier Skills). Coaching blog covering coach education, player development, and tactics. keeptheball.wordpress.com/

Coach Central is an independent educational resource. Linked works belong to their respective authors and publishers; we cite and recommend them, and the commentary here is our own.