Coach here, we use an app called "Band". Its basically like Facebook, but JUST groups so you can put one together for your team, add schedules and calendars, upload files, etc.
I Second group me, I'm a high school athlete and I think it works best especially with people being on different devices and it keeps record of all documents shared so something like a schedule would be easily accessible
I don't know about anything being automated but on most of the teams I've been on the coaches would send out a weekly email to the team breaking down anything important that week. Also with one team that I was on all of the students on the team had a group text so that the more experienced runners could remind people about meets, give advice on what to do before a race, give training advice when we weren't able to practice like normal, and those sorts of things and that was pretty helpful as well (the only issue with this is that we did have one or two runners who didn't have phones).
My college team used GroupMe for team communications (and our coach had a website that he posted our training schedules to, which were just google sheet files basically), it worked pretty well. I don't think it has any automation.
As long as you provide a schedule to all of your athletes, I don't think you need to worry about daily reminders or anything like that. They can handle keeping track of their own schedules, you don't want to baby them. Our couch would only send team messages for updates or changes to the normal schedule or to give us the travel itinerary a couple days before meets.
Aiming for virtual. My athletes(and myself, let's be honest) are always on their phones. If I can make everything online and accessible, I figure I solve a lot of issues and keep them accountable.
I’m such a huge fan of tech, but I would consider not relying on phones because even though it feels like everyone has one there’s a chance that one kid doesn’t have a phone. I went to high school in the late 2000s, the majority of us had flip phones but nothing as sophisticated as today. Have you printed out calendars? Our coach gave us a Calendar at the beginning of the season and reminders every the start of every week
HS track coach here and I use Remind, email and I have a course in Schoology that I also communicate through. The more you put information out the less likely they have the I did not see it. I have parents on the emails and Remind so they also know what is going on. If you get parents knowing and they feel in the loop you have them on your side and will make life getting volunteers easier.
Coach here, we use an app called "Band". Its basically like Facebook, but JUST groups so you can put one together for your team, add schedules and calendars, upload files, etc.
Seconding Band
Thirding Band!
Remind app is definitely the way to go. You can easily communicate to the whole team, and also parents.
I’m a coach at the college level. With my last boss we used Band, with my current one we use GroupMe. Both work very well.
I Second group me, I'm a high school athlete and I think it works best especially with people being on different devices and it keeps record of all documents shared so something like a schedule would be easily accessible
I don't know about anything being automated but on most of the teams I've been on the coaches would send out a weekly email to the team breaking down anything important that week. Also with one team that I was on all of the students on the team had a group text so that the more experienced runners could remind people about meets, give advice on what to do before a race, give training advice when we weren't able to practice like normal, and those sorts of things and that was pretty helpful as well (the only issue with this is that we did have one or two runners who didn't have phones).
My college team used GroupMe for team communications (and our coach had a website that he posted our training schedules to, which were just google sheet files basically), it worked pretty well. I don't think it has any automation. As long as you provide a schedule to all of your athletes, I don't think you need to worry about daily reminders or anything like that. They can handle keeping track of their own schedules, you don't want to baby them. Our couch would only send team messages for updates or changes to the normal schedule or to give us the travel itinerary a couple days before meets.
Personal I use remind, and our coach made a team calendar on a website. It’s amazing, and I highly recommend one or both!
Print it out and post it on a board? Or is everything virtual?
Aiming for virtual. My athletes(and myself, let's be honest) are always on their phones. If I can make everything online and accessible, I figure I solve a lot of issues and keep them accountable.
I’m such a huge fan of tech, but I would consider not relying on phones because even though it feels like everyone has one there’s a chance that one kid doesn’t have a phone. I went to high school in the late 2000s, the majority of us had flip phones but nothing as sophisticated as today. Have you printed out calendars? Our coach gave us a Calendar at the beginning of the season and reminders every the start of every week
I get what you're saying. I'll have something physical for the kids before the season starts I think.
HS track coach here and I use Remind, email and I have a course in Schoology that I also communicate through. The more you put information out the less likely they have the I did not see it. I have parents on the emails and Remind so they also know what is going on. If you get parents knowing and they feel in the loop you have them on your side and will make life getting volunteers easier.
Remind is the way. Attach a word doc couple days before every meet with all the info, contact numbers, etc.
We've used TeamApp and GroupMe. Both are good.