Tom WattsHead Football CoachOhio WesleyanWhat were some of the problems or challenges you faced before Teamworks?Being a Division 3 program, you don’t have all of the support staff like a Division 1 program would have. For us, we tried to be as organized as we possibly could as far as saving things on a shared drive or trying to collectively keep things organized together so everybody could stay on the same page. That was really the challenge. Everything we had was either on Powerpoint or Word, or we had software we used to text the players, so you were always using different products to do different things.Teamworks tied everything together for us in one place. We were always looking for a way to be more efficient, and to try and rethink the way we did things to be more effective. We tried a lot of different things that didn’t work, but by using Teamworks we’ve streamlined the process in an effective way that we continue to use.Why did you decide to implement Teamworks with your program?A good friend of mine is the offensive line coach at NC State. He introduced me to the product and walked me through how they use it. It intrigued me and so I called up the staff at Teamworks and set up a trial. Honestly, it’s probably one of the best things we’ve done in this past season just as far as being able to organize ourselves and our team. It’s been awesome from the start to the finish right now.What would you say are the top 5 benefits of using Teamworks?I don’t know if there’s really an aspect that hasn’t been a huge benefit to us. The Messaging is the most beneficial for our players. Incorporating that with the Calendar so our players can see their appointments. That’s the biggest thing for us is that players can see when a team meeting is, when practice is, if our head coach needs to move practice to another time. That’s been the best aspect for us as a team.For the staff, the Travel tab has been unbelievable as far as for saving us time. We actually used it today as a full staff for the first time and everybody was just amazed at how easy this is going to be for us as far as being more efficient. Every week when we traveled, our big travel meeting was always an hour and a half to two hour meeting and now it might be ten to twenty minutes.Class Schedules is a great feature for us. At a Division 3 school, we’re all wearing different hats, we don’t have a whole department that does class scheduling with our players. At 9 o’ clock on a Tuesday we can see who’s supposed to be where, we can go over there and check really quickly and it makes it so much more efficient for us. The fifth aspect would be the Metrics. Our strength and conditioning coach was blown away at how he can track everybody from freshmen to seniors.Do you have any specifics examples of how Teamworks has been particularly useful?We just had one the other day. We’re getting ready for camp and our check-in day is next week. We put all of the players’ agendas for moving into the dorms, submitting NCAA forms, being fitted for equipment, and everything else on the Teamworks Calendar. Within about five minutes of doing that, I probably got ten phone calls of players telling me how awesome it is to have their schedules on their phones so they can be ready for check-in day. That’s always stressful for everybody, especially for the parents. Now everyone knows what they’re supposed to do. It hasn’t just been great for the players and coaches, but also for the administration and parents.What has the reaction to Teamworks been like from the coaching staff?We have a couple guys here who aren’t tech savvy that were blown away by Teamworks. They think it’s the best investment we’ve made up to this point. There hasn’t been one negative comment about it at all. It’s been amazing. It’s been a lifesaver for us. In a Division 1 program, they might have a DFO as a full-time staff member with a couple assistants who can organize everybody. Teamworks acts in effect as that person. For me, as the head coach, it’s definitely brought down the stress level.How have the players reacted to Teamworks?When they see the product and what it does, they know they don’t have to call us every hour to see where they need to be or what they need to be doing. It’s right there in front of them on their phone. It puts them at ease to know where to be and when to be there.How would you rate the training process and the customer service?It’s been five stars all the way. It’s been amazing since the get-go. We’ve gotten instant feedback if we’ve needed help or advice. It’s been unbelievable. The timely fashion of everything as far as being able to use it, customer service, being able to pass it on to the players and get up and running with it has been awesome. Hands down, it’s been one of the best experiences I’ve had in dealing with another company.What would you say to a program that doesn’t have Teamworks?Coaches get into their own routine. They’re creatures of habit. I think the best thing would be to say to just try Teamworks and see all of the features. It’s so user-friendly that you don’t really need too much teaching. I think within ten minutes, people will realize what they just did in ten minutes would normally take them an hour as far as saving information to a document, updating information in a document, e-mailing it out to all of the players, and then collecting feedback from that e-mail, I think just naturally by playing with the software, it will show its worth.Is Teamworks something that only certain programs could benefit from?I think Teamworks can be used by anybody. I could even see a high school program using Teamworks. I think it’s adaptable to anybody at any level.Would you recommend Teamworks to a peer?Wholeheartedly. No doubt about it, I would have no reservations as far as recommending Teamworks to another program. Every coach is looking for that edge. Every coach is looking for that way to be more efficient. Teamworks is exactly that.Finally, how does Teamworks help you win?It saves us so much time. It allows us to be organized. We want to have organized and efficient practices and we want the same thing off the field. There’s a correlation between the two and the players see that too.