Perfect your game with Coach’s Eye

When my younger brother used to tend goal for his house league hockey team, my dad and I fancied ourselves his personal coaches, always offering up criticism of how he could improve his technique. In the car rides home from the rink, the two of us would do our best impression of a post-game commentator panel, giving my brother a blow-by-blow breakdown of all the right and wrong movements he did during the game. We dissected his game so much, I’m sure he would have quit had he not loved playing so much!

I’ll say this: our criticism worked for the most part, but there were just some subtleties that were impossible to articulate. If only we had had video replays that we could draw our Xs and Os on like the real professionals, then my dad and I really could have pinpointed everything!

Well, my fellow armchair coaches and overzealous parents, now there’s an app for that.

It’s called Coach’s Eye, and it’s an ingenious little tool that every coach should have as part of their playbook. This app lets you take video on your iPhone and overlay audio commentary and simple graphics like squares, arrows and circles onto the file. This way, the coach or parent can take video of their athlete as they play and easily point out where the mistakes in their form lie. You can even playback the video in slow-motion as is done during professional sports broadcasts.

Coach’s Eye

iPhone, iPad, iPod touch

$4.99

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/coachs-eye/id472006138?mt=8

Now of course, this idea isn’t radically new; both coaches and scouts videotape athletes to get an idea of their strengths and weaknesses. Even my dad experimented with videotaping my brother’s games at one point. But the great thing about this app is that all the tools are in the palm of your hand, just a few clicks and swipes away. You can easily compile a few short video clips for the athlete to see during the game so they can correct their mistakes on the fly.

It’s also really easy to share video files with this app, another big plus over conventional recording programs. You can send any videos you take using email, SMS, YouTube or any app that can handle .mov files, such as Evernote or Dropbox. And if you sign up for a free Coach’s Eye account, you can check out a timeline of videos you’ve created.

While coaches and players alike are sure to get a ton of value out of this app, perhaps the ones who will enjoy it the most are the parents who support their children as they play their favourite sport. Nothing says great memories like a handy highlight reel app to capture those proud moments every parent feels when they watch their kid play.

So if you’re passionate – or maybe even too passionate – about improving the game of an athlete in your life, I highly recommend you check this app out. You’ll see what a difference it can make – literally!