How a Sports Coach Behave?
The Mentality of Coach
It is actually easier to coach the physical part of the
game for most coaches. It tends to be the mental part that is difficult. The
coach that can put both of these together is rare indeed. It is also important
to get psychological items set before the season starts and to begin
implementation right away.
In many instances, coaches have their own hang-ups, or
let’s call it lack of understanding, to overcome to be able to effectively
coach youngsters – or even older players for that matter. Some of these
hang-ups include:
•
Coaching their own youngsters.
It is difficult for any coach to properly be objective
when coaching a son or daughter. There are two extremes to avoid. The first and
most obvious is being biased for their own. Parents cannot reasonably look at
their own child and not have great empathy, as well desire, to see them do
well. In some cases, the parent/coach is there to “protect” their own. The
second extreme is the coach that over compensates in trying to be fair. This is
more difficult for the child, since it is their parent coaching – and they are
not used to being treated as just one of the group by their parent.
•
Taking success too personally.
Some coaches use their team as a means of gratification
for themselves because they lack it in other areas of their lives. I’m not
saying that coaches shouldn’t feel a sense of satisfaction as well as enjoy
coaching, but the extreme is nearly always bad. The coaching of youngsters has
its rewards as does coaching a successful team. Too often, however, it is the
power or the winning that coaches lack in other aspects of their lives that
they are after.
•
Coaches can’t assess themselves very well.
If each coach could stand back and objectively watch
themselves in practice and games, they would have a better understanding of
what other people see. Coaches want to look proper and “reasonable;” most feel
that they are. They want others to see them that way, as well. They often can’t
objectively see themselves, however. They need someone else to take a look for
them and give an honest assessment.
•
Coaches can’t relate.
Most coaches are 10, 20, 30 years older than players they
coach. It takes work and study to know, at least somewhat, how a 10-year-old or
a 16-year-old thinks and feels. Sometimes, bad experiences at age 10 or 11 also
slant the coach’s approach. A bad experience with a coach or a in a sport 20 or
30 years ago has very little to do with coaching a team of 15 or 20 youngsters
today.
I always recognize some of these traits in myself. Having
coached for going on 30 years, I’ve likely had a bit of all the problems
somewhere along the way. I still ask myself every year why I want to coach this
next season. I haven’t coached my own youngsters for over a dozen years now and
have other successful business and family endeavors, so my reasons have to be
narrowed down.
If a coach can be objective, overcome hang-ups, and
decide to coach for mostly the right reasons (including “I like it’), then he
or she is ready to deal with the psychological aspects for the best benefit to
team players. Notice I didn’t say coaches should use psychology to win.
Actually I did mean win, but winning in that the players gain personal and team
skills and experiences that will help them down the line. Down the line may
even be next week or in the latter part of the season, or later in life.
The keys to this whole process, I believe, are a
reasonably positive approach and building of player’s self confidence. Self
confidence includes many other things such as self esteem and self worth. It is
very difficult to coach in a perfectly positive mode. I believe that positive
feedback has to be in the “majority,” however. There will be teaching,
correcting and disciplining moments for all players that will be on the other
side of the ledger, but in the end, the ledger must be heavy on the positive
side.
I also believe that having a primarily positive approach,
to some degree, comes from the coach truly liking the players. Each player has
things to like and the coach must find those things. At the high school level,
I always have players that are truly nice young men – intelligent, talented in
other things, fun to be around. Sometimes they are not very good hockey
players. I want to like them for all that they are and be as positive as
possible (and honest) with them.
Self confidence is the most important thing for a coach
to strive for with players. We have all seen teams that seem to play right up
to and beyond their potential or talent level. We have also seen teams that
seem to struggle to achieve their potential. They are what we normally call
underachievers. They likely suffer from low self confidence. Passes are just
off, they look tired, and they don’t seem to be able to get it done.
The positive approach and good skill development are the
keys to self confidence. We are not going to get into skill development this
week, but I will say that there are right ways and wrong ways to build skills –
and have players confident they can express them in games.
It is my belief that no matter what else happens or
improves, from the beginning to the end of a season, a team will get measurably
better if self confidence goes up measurably during that time.
Image Source: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1136532
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