Not too long ago, Derek Johnston made the leap into coaching full time.
The belief he had in himself has been validated - he now works in four different coaching roles in and around Glasgow in Scotland.
His current CV reads community outreach coach at Cumbernauld Colts, women’s first- team coach at Stenhousemuir, one-to-one coach at Oliver Performance Academy and soccer academies coach at Scottish giants Rangers.
We caught up with Derek to talk about making coaching his full-time profession, how, by working with adults then children, he is doing things in reverse order, and why reflection is a key focus for him this year…
SCW: What would you say to someone thinking about moving into coaching full- time?
DJ: "If you want to get a career in the game, you need to be out there coaching.
"I do four coaching roles in a week because I want to be on the grass as much as possible - that's the only place you're going to get good.
“I think I've been given opportunities through showing how keen I am to learn. That would be my main advice - just show you want it and put everything into it."
SCW: You coached adults first and then moved into youth football. What do you think you've learned from doing it that way round?
DJ: "I have learned to have a filter. From my background, I was pretty industrial in terms of my language. Obviously, when you're coaching kids, you can't be cursing.
“You've also got to learn the different ways you give messages as well. I find myself understanding how to empathise with people on all different levels.
“In terms of working with kids, my main thing is seeing them enjoy it. Because if they're not enjoying it, why are they on the pitch?
“If that kid goes up the road with a smile on their face – because they've run about for an hour, scored plenty of goals, got to interact with their friends, set up a winning goal, nutmegged their best mate, whatever – I've done my job that day."
"I learned to have a filter... I was pretty industrial in terms of my language "
SCW: A big focus for you is reflecting on your practices and sessions. When coaching gets really busy, sometimes that is one of the things we forget to do. Why is reflection such an important part of coaching?
DJ: "I'm quite lucky in that two of the three clubs I work with already have curriculums I can work towards.
"But, obviously, it's just a base. I also put my own twist on it and I've built up a bank of 48 weeks' worth of sessions.
“The review side of it comes in because in some of these sessions, there will be parts I've never done before.
"So the reflection is really important in terms of seeing what landed properly. I always like to do questions and answers as a recap at the end, whether it be kids or adults, and see what they understood in terms of the messages you gave throughout your session.
“Did my coaching points land, or did they just hear crickets as soon as I mentioned a certain part?
"I think that's the art of coaching at times - to realise what has landed and what hasn't, so you can focus on the bits that haven't and keep the stuff that works.
“I don't drive, so I do a lot of reflection and a lot of reading during my commuting. They are my moments where I can jot something down, or just take a note in my phone, and I can come back to it.
“The way I look at it is you reflect on your reflection, and try to notice skills gaps as a coach, the things that creep up consistently.”
SCW: How do you take those reflections and observations and use them to improve or adjust your next session?
DJ: "Every coach will have their own way of doing it. I'm quite lucky, I'm probably on the grass for about 20 hours a week just now, so that next session doesn't tend to be too far away.
“I think there are some common things that will pop up in every session that you think ‘the next time I go out, I've got to be better at this’ - whether it be your projection, how you demonstrate, how you keep a group’s attention.
"They're kids at the end of the day, they don't want to stand and listen to me tell them for 30 minutes ‘you must do this, you must do that’. My main thing is just get the ball rolling, and show them within that.
“You can find the moments you need to improve on quite easily within your own reflection just by looking deep enough and actually having focused reflection questions as well.
"My reflection model has changed recently. I'm looking more at things I maybe didn't think about before, like ball-rolling time, how I structure my breaks in a session, when I'll use moments to step in.
“Every session now, my main aim is to make sure that the ball is at least rolling for 80% of the time. If I hit 90%, then my question to myself is ‘am I coaching enough?'."
"My reflection model has changed. I look more at things like ball-rolling time..."
SCW: Another question you ask is whether the players are getting better at soccer or if they are getting better at the drill. Why do you think that is such an important thing for coaches to be conscious of?
DJ: "If you do it enough, you can be good at that particular drill. But if you don't follow it up with a bit of pressure, it doesn't mean anything.
"The possession box warm-up we use at Stenhousemuir is nice and simple. You've got orange against yellows in a possession box - you'll have a yellow player at each side of the box and an orange player at the top and bottom of the box.
“Players in the middle look to transfer the ball between their two outside players to get a point. So if I'm on the orange team and I play my top player in, get the ball back, keep possession, then play it to the bottom player, then we get the ball back, we're one-up.
“So within that, I think we've found a way of building in our actual principles of play and we actually get something from it.
"I used to have to stop it a fair bit and it was always the same thing every week - right at the freeze moment, I would say 'What's wrong here?'.
"Nine times out of ten, it would be that they were all far too crammed in. It’s a 24- by-24 box and you could have put a net over them in a 10-yard space.
“But now, they're used to doing it. They've had that regularity of doing the same warm- up and they know, if we space out, Del's not going to moan at us because we're all in the same area.
"So they will create the width and the depth that we need to actually play properly. Little things like that is just another way of - rather than just making your players better at your drill - making them better at football."
"The first thing I look at is 'do I actually see the game of football in what I'm doing?' - if I don't, there's no point in doing it..."
HEAR THE FULL-LENGTH INTERVIEW WITH DEREK, INCLUDING AN INSIGHT INTO HIS COACHING PHILOSOPHY AND TRAINING METHODS, ON OUR PODCAST —
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