Mike Ellis, Head Coach, Men's Basketball, Richwoods HS, Peoria IL,
2006 Illinois Boys Basketball Class AA State Runner-up

Coach Ellis, his assistant coaches and his players in the Richwoods HS Men’s Basketball Program have been using Sideline Sports products for more than three years with great success. We got Coach Ellis to sit down for a few minutes, and share with us his experience with Sideline Sports Software.

Coach Ellis, what got you attention and what where you looking for when you made your buying decision?

Having the opportunity to coach as an assistant for two extremely successful coaches, as well as compiling hundreds of drills, strategies and philosophies at numerous coaching clinics across America, I was seeking a media format, other than pen and paper, to store and organize my collection of coaching materials. I had so many good drills and philosophies that I wanted to utilize when I became a head coach and I needed a way to store and organize everything.

What features were you looking for in a software to help you with your coaching?

When I was named the Varsity Boys Basketball Head Coach at Richwoods High School, in Peoria, Illinois, I began searching for software programs that would be my protocol for my daily coaching duties. I was looking for various programs available that could: 1) store and display diagrams of specific entries, set plays, offenses, defenses and out-of-bounds plays; 2) organize all of my practice drills, in addition to planning daily practices; 3) create and display scouting information and reports; and 4) mark video clips relating to specific game situations where I could call up moments in the game to watch video with our players, rather than just sit down and search through an entire game.

From the recommendation of one of the head coaches I had coached with, I was directed to see what Sideline Sports had to offer. Before I had the chance to see what Sideline’s Sports software was all about, I was already partially sold. I contacted a representative from Sideline through e-mail regarding learning about the features of the Sideline Organizer and Analyzer. The very same day of my inquiry, a product consultant gave me a call and gave me a description of all the features the Sideline Organizer and Analyzer had to offer and where I could find more detailed information on their website.

By the end of the day, I was committed to purchasing the Organizer and the Analyzer. In one package, I was able to fill the needs of everything I was looking for to help build a solid platform for the beginning of my coaching career. Moreover, one extremely important point for me was that it was not time consuming to begin using it.

What do you like the most about the Sideline Sports Concept?

It is difficult to highlight one specific feature that I have the most use for with the Sideline Organizer. Whether it be planning practices, analyzing practice situations, reviewing drills and plays, designing scouting reports or simply diagramming a new out-of-bounds play to be viewed by the team, each and every day I am using the Sideline Organizer in one capacity or another.

If I had to pick the one feature that makes the Sideline Organizer stand out, it would be the ability to design a Master Plan for each individual season; this allows the coach to select only the specific drills and plays/sets that he or she would like to work with for that season. When you have an expansive library of drills and tactics, this becomes very helpful. The features of diagramming plays and viewing animated plays in motion are added bonuses when it comes to scouting and/or teaching other coaches, or even your own players, on executing specific drills or plays/sets.

Possibly the most telling feature of the Sideline coaching software is the Sideline Analyzer itself. I was interested in breaking down our game film where we could focus more specifically on individual plays or situations. For example, rather than watching game film in it’s entirety, the Analyzer gives the opportunity to tag specific clips from the game to be called up with a query on any given moment.

This allows the coach, to meet with an individual player, or the entire team and review the results of every possession that one specific entry was run. I have also found it useful to watch game film by viewing all of our defensive possessions at once so the players can focus solely on our defensive philosophies and principles, rather than anticipating a great move that one of our players might have made at the offensive end, and possibly ignoring the discussion while waiting for that moment to occur. Then, we go back through the game and view all of our offensive possessions in succession to analyze productive situations and learn from our unsuccessful possessions.

With the Sideline analyzer, it is also possible to view statistical data with the video clips attached to the data. For example, I would design a function for looking at what percentage of the points did the other team score while we were in our man-to-man defense, our zone defense, or our run-and-jump trap defense. Not only will you receive the statistical values with this formula, you also have the ability to view the game clips of these specific situations.

If our run-and-jump trapping defense was yielding points at a high rate, we would view all of the defensive possessions where we were in our run-and-jump defense without having to rewind and fast forward on an analog VHS tape. In a matter of 3-5 minutes, we could view an entire games worth of our 10 or so possessions where we were in our trapping defense all in succession. I find this to be a valuable teaching tool to focus on individual components of our defensive and offensive strategies. I found it incredible to get a product like this with our high school budget; this was the only software I found, that gave great value for a great price.

Coach Ellis, do you have a message to other coaches?

In summation, I would strongly recommend the Sideline Organizer and Analyzer coaching software to anyone in the coaching profession. Whether you are a new coach beginning your trade, or a head coach of an established high-level program, the Sideline coaching software gives you the platform for organizing and implementing your coaching philosophies and principles. Your players have the opportunity to learn from another dimension beyond the on-floor coaching they receive daily.

Assistant coaches can greatly benefit from this software as they build their library of coaching drills and strategies to one day, implement their own philosophies.

Head coaches will be able to utilize this software for everything from practice planning, to game preparation, to game analysis. It truly is an all-in-one coaching software.

Coach Ellis, thank you for the interview. We wish you great success in the future.