Book Review: Coaching Pattern Read Coverage by Tom Olivadotti

A few weeks back I picked up the very cheap book Coaching Pattern Read Coverage by Tom Olivadotti off of Amazon. Found HERE

For me it was a quick read, probably finished it in about 5 hours on the first time through, cover to cover. The terminology is understandable, the diagrams make sense and correspond to the stuff happening on the page (not always a given, in my experience).

The second time through I did what I usually do, highlight and/or circle things with my red pen while tabbing various things with multi-colored post-it tabs. The three things I focused on were: technique or coaching oriented comments or passages I liked, good examples of playing specific pass plays from various coverages, and individual free-standing morsels. There were lots of things I liked which provided me with a few phrases and 'buzz words' to use while coaching up the guys. What I realized while going through the book the second time through was that this book would be fantastic for my JV DC, who is a great, great guy but never played the game at a high level and doesn't have a large knowledge base yet, as well as the guy we're grooming to become frosh DC. It's not terribly complex or complicated, it won't revolutionize the way someone coaches (I hope), but it's easy to understand and gives a very good base that will help to catch up lower level coaches who may not 'be there' yet.