6 Free Online Tools for the Quasi Savvy Ultimate Frisbee Coach

So you’ve signed up to coach Ultimate.

coach

You are in fairly decent physical condition, been learning some drills and think you are all set. But then SURPRISE the administrative side of things takes over your life and you are up late trying to keep track of jersey orders, planning practices, getting waivers in and so much more.

Below are 6 free online tools for the quasi-web savvy coach. These range from tracking tasks, to planning practices to creating flyers and posters for recruiting.

  1. Canva: Ever need to make a poster or maybe post something on a Facebook group and find yourself lacking in your design skills? Well if you are not a designer or don’t have access to one, Canva is free and makes graphic design easy. Canva has an interactive web canvas that is brain dead simple and can be used for most of your design needs.
  2. Google Docs/Google Apps: Nothing beats Google’s free suite of tools for spreadsheets or word processing. You can use Google Docs to track your jersey orders, plan practices, write cheers, and so much more. If you want to see this in action, check out these Youth Ultimate Resources.
  3. Trello: Trello is a free project management tool that is based off of a model known as Kanban, made famous by Toyota in the ’80s. Create tasks and have them represented as cards, which allows you to create a visual representation of what is happening with a project. It may sound heavy handed, but Trello is great for tackling a house project, mapping out your vacation and of course for planning your season. Use Trello for all the various tasks that come in during the ramp up to the season.
  4. Drop Box: If you have stored a bunch of photos from practice and games or need a place to put your team logo or assets from your school, Drop Box is a free service that lets you store all sorts of things.
  5. Evernote: Evernote is a note taking application on steroids. With an app for Android and iOS as well as a desktop client and a nice web interface, Evernote has it all. Use it for that annual coaches meeting or to take notes during a clinic or to line up your practices. It has a premium option, but the free version is more than enough for basic needs. One caveat, if you are a Mac addict, the Notes app on the Mac and iOS makes for a nice alternative.
  6. Doodle: Do you need to schedule a parents’ meeting before the season starts? Trying to setup that end of season pizza party? But  schedules are all over the map and there is no way to get people on the same page. Fear not, use Doodle. Doddle is a quick and dirty scheduler that is easy to use. Just setup a meeting, propose a few possible times for the meeting and then invite people to choose when they can attend. There is a clear tally of the number of people for each time and date available. You can see when the most people can attend an event at a given time. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

Have a tool that is a life saver? Let us know in the comments.

3 thoughts on “6 Free Online Tools for the Quasi Savvy Ultimate Frisbee Coach”

  1. Here’s two recommended by Minnesota Ultimate for youth coaches (mainly middle and high school)…

    http://www.ultianalytics.com/
    UltiAnalytics is a mobile (iOS and Android) app and website to help you gather statistics and analyze your ultimate team.

    http://www.flikulti.com/
    Flik has a huge library of ultimate drills, practice plans, diagrams, videos and theory articles.
    Learn what works, and why. Create training sessions. Train better. Play better.

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