SubTime
Coaching made easy
Our Mission
We are volunteer youth sports coaches on a mission to help you pass on your love of sport to future generations.
There are few roles in life that are as important and fulfilling as being a coach or a mentor. We are here to help you on that journey.
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Our Origins
SubTime came about when Lin and John were coaching their kids youth soccer team. As Lin recalls..
"Managing the expectations of the kids and the parents got difficult as the teams grew in size. We struggled to find a fair way to ensure each player got sufficient game time.
We tried a few apps that were on the market, but none of them were intuitive enough to be able to use it during a live game."
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So Lin created the SubTime App to ensure that each of the kids got the same opportunity chance to participate in the game.
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"My primary goal was to produce something that is simple to use. Volunteer Coaches and Sports Managers are extreme multi-taskers. At any one time, we can be tending to an injured player, dealing with a request from parents, or preparing players to enter the game...
...at the same time you are planning substitutions based on how the game is developing or trying to figure out how much time each player has been on the field for. When dealing with large teams of players at young age groups, it can quickly get chaotic."
Why Track Player Time?
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Many leagues are also introducing regulations that encourage coaches to ensure each player is getting a fair amount of game time.
Sports associations are seeing the damage that an over emphasis on competition at the expense of skill building can bring to youth sport. As a result a number of associations have introduced directives to coaches such as the "Half time Rule" applied in some sports, as well as "Equal Game Time" initiatives, to ensure a minimum amount of game time for young players..​
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Tracking this time is fine in theory, but in practice a coach can spend most of their attention trying to manage the playing time or substitutions and miss out on the more strategic aspects and demands of the game.
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SubTime solves this problem, something John was skeptical about at the beginning.
"When Lin first showed me the app, I'll admit I wasn't sure I needed it. I grew up in a sporting culture where winning was defined by the scoreline. I didn't fully appreciate the importance of equal game time for kids when I first started coaching.
Thankfully the research of organizations like the Aspen project and the influence of people like John O'Sullivan and his work on the "Changing the game" project inspired me to think differently."
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Learning from our 'Super Subs'
Even Lin has been surprised at the rate of growth for an app that started as a quick fix for our local team.
"What I love about SubTime is the community that has been created around it. We now have coaches in over 115 countries around the world using it."
What is impressive to us is the depth of experience of the SubTime users.
"We thought it would be most useful for people that are new to coaching, but what we are seeing is that experienced coaches are even more likely to use it to plan and manage substitutions as well as track player time."
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The app has evolved since its initial debut with all of the features being inspired by its growing community of dedicated users.
"We call these coaches our 'Super Subs'" says John, "we listen very closely to their feedback and Lin has built the app based on their suggestions. The quality of insight and feedback we get from our users is phenomenal. They appreciate the fact that we are on this journey with them. We understand the joy and challenges associated with coaching. Our SubTime community is growing and we are in this together."
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Lin agrees,
"People are telling us that they love its ease of use. They can quickly make changes to formation, track scores and key events. They can share the summary analytics with others after the game. Even the pre-game set up is helped by the 'easy to manage' team roster."
"I'm excited to see where our users will take us next."