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Coaching Duties and Standards

Serving as a Bible Quizzing coach can be one of the single most valuable roles in advancing the mission to encourage the most people to memorize the most verses of Scripture. Coaches mentor, train, and equip quizzers between meets and guide, encourage, and support quizzers at meets. A coach leads a team of quizzers. Teams are grouped by team organization; an entity, typically though not always a church, that sponsors teams. Each team organization has a head coach and may have several additional coaches, up to 1 per team.

Herein we’ll overview the duties and standard of coaches, starting the minimum duties, progressing through various “how to” topics, then concluding with overall advanced leadership duties.

Minimum Coach Duties

While most of the duties of a coach are self-assigned, there are a few minimum duties every head coach must either perform or delegate and ensure are completed timely.

Meet Registration

Most, though not all, meets require registration be submitted prior to a registration deadline. This is accomplished via the CBQz.org web site’s meet registration system. Everyone involved in Bible Quizzing (whether coach, quizzer, parent, or spectator) should sign up for an account.

  1. Visit the CBQz.org web site.
  2. If you don’t already have a CBQ web site account:
    1. Select a region via a link in the “Regions” section of the navigation menu (left side of the page on a large-screen device, or under the 3-horizontal-line “hamburger” menu icon in the upper-right on a small-screen device).
    2. Click on the “Sign-Up” link in the upper-right corner or in the footer at the bottom of the page.
    3. Fill out the form in full, submit, and look for a verification email containing a verification link. Follow all instructions.
  3. Click on the “Login” link in the upper-right corner or in the footer at the bottom of the page and fill out and submit the login form.
  4. Visit the “Season Schedule” page via any such labeled link.
  5. If the next upcoming scheduled meet requires registration, there will appear a registration submission button inside the highlighted meet box. Click on that to view your team organization’s registration information.
  6. Fill out the form in full and submit.

You may resubmit meet registration as many times as necessary to update for changes until the meet registration deadline, after which the registration system is locked.

Important: It is entirely the responsibility of the head coach of each team organization to ensure their organization’s registration data is submitted accurately and in full prior to each meet’s registration deadline. Please contact q@cbqz.org if you have any questions about anything or need assistance.

Transport Logistics

The head coach, either directly or indirectly through delegation, needs to ensure all their organization’s quizzers and support personnel timely arrive at meets. To that end, the head coach (or his/her delegates) should:

Overnight accommodations are often but not always made available by the meet’s host location and hosting leadership. Contact hosting leadership directly for more information.

Fees

Each region made set a fee structure as it best sees fit to cover operational expenses, under the understanding that CBQ and all CBQ regions are non-profit religious enterprises. The head coach needs to ensure fees are paid timely, based on whatever policies regions setup.

Important: On behalf of families for which any such fees would be a burden, please contact q@cbqz.org to enquire about scholarships.

How to…

Start (and Lead) a Team Organization

Starting a new team organization (or adopting a team organization as its new head coach) is far less daunting than it may seem at first.

An early step in starting a new team organization is to obtain a charter from the oversight or sponsoring entity. Ensure the entity and its tenants are not in conflict with the CBQ articles and bylaws and any governing CBQ regional articles and bylaws. In most cases, team organizations are associated with churches, but they can be any entity that supports the coaching of teams of quizzers.

Dialog with your CBQ region’s leadership as they may have specific additional requirements or steps prior to participating. Please contact q@cbqz.org if you have any questions.

Coaches are entrusted to ensure compliance with standards and practices from CBQ and any CBQ regions to which the team organization will belong. In particular, all coaches should ensure they and all other Bible Quizzing leaders aspire to the ideal standards set out in the Leadership Requirements document.

All coaches, but especially head coaches, should aspire to high levels of communications responsiveness.

Recruit Quizzers

Everyone in each team organization should be persistently recruiting quizzers. There are a variety of ways to do this. One of the most effective recruitment methods is quizzers inviting their friends. To help facilitate this, coaches should consider sponsoring fun social gatherings where Quizzing is part of the conversation. Leverage community networks, especially home schooling networks, local area youth groups, pastoral connections, and other friend connections.

Run Practices

Coaches should lead routine, regular, predictable practice sessions. These ideally should be scheduled based on a pattern (i.e. every Sunday after church except the first Sunday after a meet, or every Thursday at 7 PM except during Christmas break, etc.) not haphazardly or at the last minute. Coaches should ask and encourage quizzers to establish and commit to a weekly and daily routine of memorizing, review, and self-drills based on the interest, capabilities, and willing investment of each quizzer. It would therefore be hypocritical if coaches don’t also demonstrate similar self-discipline in establishing routines for practices.

Coaches can use QuizSage to setup quiz drills and pick-up (i.e. practice) quizzes. Coaches can work with quizzers to leverage the memorization tools. Quizzers can share their memorization state with their coaches, parents, and fellow quizzers for accountability and mutual encouragement to memorize and review.

The strongest quizzers tend to have engaged parents and disciplined routines for memorization and review, so coaches should strive to help all their quizzers develop these.

Build Strategy

A good coach will work collaboratively with their quizzers to build strategy both for preparing for meets and performance at meets. This begins with the coach deeply understanding the letter and multi-order effects of the CBQ rules. Strategies could involve:

Important: While strategic planning is valuable as it’ll typically provide an edge against a comparable team that didn’t plan strategy, no amount of strategic planning or execution can overcome a failure to memorize and review. Therefore, successful teams on balance will always use strategy to build upon solid memorization and review, not as a way to avoid or reduce memorization or review.

Coach at a Meet

There are a myriad of ways coaches can effectively coach at a meet. Each coach should examine and plan out how they can best support their teams and quizzers. Some ideas include:

Coaches may appeal a ruling they perceive to be in violation of any rule in the the Rule Book. All appeals should be conducted with respect; and if overruled, appeal submitters should accept the decision, integrate its implications, and move on. Appeals are inappropriate and unacceptable places to argue for changes to the rules, which should instead be submitted following a meet and in accordance with the rules change submission process.

Leadership Duties

In addition to all the above, coaches are encouraged to be an prepared and active participant in and CBQ regional and international governance. To this end, coaches are encouraged to read and understand:

Coaches are further encouraged to attend CBQ governance meetings.

Coaches should persistently look for ways to: