Helping Hands: 5 Candidates to Help You Capture Game Footage

For coaches with limited resources, especially those that volunteer at the youth levels of play, finding help beyond the coaching staff can be a struggle.

By being creative with your pitch for help, however, you can easily find someone to help record your games.

Here are the five most accessible candidates you can tab for your video crew on game day.

Friends & Family

As a coach, you are more than likely surround yourself with people that have a passion for sports. Ask your closest friends to spend a Saturday or two video recording your games and then discuss x’s and o’s with them the next time you hang out. In addition to having your games recorded, you’ll also receive feedback on your coaching techniques from your trusted peers.

Family members of both the coaching staff and players are also a great resource you can tap. Parents love nothing more than helping their young ones succeed so why not ask them to help out – they’ll have a direct impact on their son or daughter’s development after all.

Set up a sign-up sheet for parents to sign at the beginning of the season and have a video recording rotation in place so responsibilities are shared among a decent-sized group. Parents will feel they are affecting the team’s success and you’ll be able to build rapport with individuals you may not have had an open dialogue with otherwise.

Aspiring Coaches

Every school has them. There are countless kids across the country that aspire to someday coach their favorite team to a championship.

Identify these future coaches and video analysts by working with administrators to post “help wanted” flyers at your local middle and high schools. Kids will jump at the opportunity to gain real-life experience helping coaches and will surely brag to their friends about their new role thus increasing your network of video recorders organically. You can even pitch it as experience in one of sports’ newly prominent professions: Video Analyst.

Concession Staff

Yep, you read that right.

More often than not, the concession staff is comprised of unpaid volunteers who help each season because they want to help out the kids and provide a great experience for those attending the games. Talk to the concession manager and work out an arrangement where their workers can record the game in shifts.

They get to see the kids they are helping live out their dreams on the playing field and in turn the workers are more engaged on game day.

High School Students

For both personal reasons and to pad their college applications, high school students take part in many hours of community service.

Work with school administrators to have recording your games and practice sessions count as official community service hours and you’ll have a pool of volunteers to choose from in no time.

Members of the audiovisual club and students interested in photojournalism are also prime candidates to record your games as the recording experience they will gain will be invaluable to their career aspirations. 

Other Coaching Staffs

You’re not alone in seeking helping hands on game days. Coaches at levels of play below and above you need assistance so it makes perfect sense to reach out to them about “paying it forward”.

Let them know you’ll help them record a few games in the season in exchange for their assistance. Who knows, you may even pick up a few new coaching techniques by surrounding yourself with coaches outside your own staff.

Know of any other candidates that can help you record games? Share your thoughts in the comments section below. Have your video recording needs covered? Great! Put your footage to good use.