Truthfully, my project was something that I've been doing for the last three years but decided to use it as my actual project back in August.  In that time, one of the biggest things I've learned is just how to work in a leadership capacity with other people.  A lot of the players on the football team my first two years were guys that I had experience working with as their teammate so I was able to see what they were like from a different perspective.  I learned pretty quick how identify the people who needed constant coaching/supervision and the people that you could tell them something once and they would make sure that they fixed it and made sure it was something that wouldn't need to be brought up again.

 

Another skill that I feel that I've been able to develop through my project and my time as a GA in general is communication.  After a point where I felt that I had a decent understanding of the position that I was helping with, I learned pretty quickly that I needed to work on my ability to get that information out to our players. Especially in my first year, I felt incredibly uncomfortable coaching players in their technique and assignment because I still felt that even though I had a good understanding of what needed to happen, the veteran players - which we had a lot of - still knew things better than I did.  A big part of developing my ability to communicate with the players was confidence too.  As I got more experience, I became more confident in what I was saying and that helped me be a more effective leader.

 

I always knew that being a leader entails being prepared but until I had the opportunity to be a GA, I never realized how much preparation goes into leading a group of athletes.  Like I've said before, our days during training camp were really long, going from 7 am to as late as 10 pm. The amount of preparation that went into trying to make sure that our players were ready for that weeks game were just as long, if not longer.