Andy Gilbert - Part 3 - Gamification in training

The Journey of a Grassroots Rugby Coach (More Tracksuits less Business Suits)

The weeks conversation is part 3 of a 3-part series where I speak with Dr Andy Gilbert PhD and Associate Professor at George Mason University.

Andy Gilbert started his grassroots coaching journey at the university level in the United States 20 years ago.

Some of his early coaching roles included backs and attack coach at New Mexico State University) as well as head coaching roles at Kent State University and Evergreen State College.

He took a university teaching and research position at RMIT University in Melbourne Australia and used his background in education to coach the littlest players (U6) at Eltham Rugby Club for two years.

After returning to the USA, he has continued his youth coaching and has worked with the same group of kids moving up from U8 through U14 for the last six years at Loudoun Youth Rugby in the state of Virginia.

I have broken the conversation into 3 parts as we had some really good discussions about a number of topics.

This is a great series of conversations with Andy and getting his thoughts around coaching junior rugby in the USA.

In episode 1 we spoke about not getting hung up on the results but focusing on performing at their best.

Not coaching young players to win now but developing their skill sets for the future and using players from your senior team to help at training.

In episode 2 we talked about how Andy is improving the parents’ rugby IQ in a non-rugby community and coach development in the US.

In episode 3 Andy spoke about his thoughts about where USA Rugby is heading and using gamification at training.