Below are bite-size tips to help you as a Double-Goal Coach®, whose first goal is winning, and whose second, more-important goal is teaching life lessons through sports.
What Coaches Can't Do
"I have seen coaches and parents determined to make their kids into superstars. Tragically, they often have the reverse effect. You can’t make kids into superstars. You can only nurture their development as great competitors. The athlete has to want it more than you want it, or it’s not going to happen. So relax. Nurture the characteristics of great competitors in all your athletes. Ultimately it’s up to them. That’s the way it works."
-- Excerpted from Positive Coaching in a Nutshell by PCA Founder and Executive Director Jim Thompson
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Audio tip from Ray Lokar, PCA Lead Trainer-Southern California, on Putting the "F-Word" Back Into Sports
Audio tip from Ray Lokar, PCA Lead Trainer-Southern California, on Rewarding Desired Effort.
Practicing With Your Players
Next time practice needs a change of pace, consider practicing with your players. Getting out onto the court or field with the athletes has a multitude of benefits for you and your team.
You get exercise, good for your physical and mental health...especially the mental health needed to stay calm and relaxed enough to coach well.
You humanize yourself for players. You're no longer just an authority figure, but one of them, subject to the same highs and lows sport offers to all who accept its challenges.
You show your players you are not asking them to do the impossible, because "If coach can execute this move (or at least look like he used to be able to execute it), then so can we."
You remember how difficult and humbling the game can be, so you are more understanding and tolerant of your players' mistakes in practices and games and more mindful of the power of Mistake Rituals, such as "flushing" mistakes.
When practicing with players just be careful that you don't get overzealous, reach for glory and end up hurting your players (if they are smaller) or yourself (if your players are bigger)!
Debriefing Your Last Game
As coach, it is tempting to share your bountiful knowledge as often as possible. After all, your job is to teach, guide and help improve your players. But there are certain times when listening is more important than talking.
In the first practice following your most recent game, ask your players to comment on what they did well as a team and where they need improvement. This can accomplish many things:
Players learn how to express themselves, which is an important life skill.
Players hear from peers, who may persuade them in ways that a coach, as an authority figure, cannot. (This is especially effective if you have team leaders who share and express your same views, generating "buy-in" to your ideas without your even voicing them.)
Players reach their own conclusions about where the team needs work, so they are that much more convinced and committed to put in the effort necessary for improvement.
You might even learn a thing or two yourself...about how players perceive themselves and their teammates, about who is (or can be) a team leader, and about strengths and weaknesses you had not recognized on your own.
Awarding Game Balls
On many youth teams it is common practice to hand out a game ball or other symbolic reward to the "player of the game." This award should not necessarily go to the most outstanding or dominant player in a game. Instead, consider using this honor to cultivate, reinforce and reward the behavior you want.
A team's coaches can meet privately right after a game while players to pack up equipment. Regardless of results on the scoreboard, coaches decide what behavior to reward with a game ball.
For example, after a baseball game, coaches may award a game ball to a player who learned from a practice session on shortening swings with two strikes. That player may have grounded out in the fourth inning of a blowout loss, but awarding the game ball publicly encourages that player and teammates to listen and learn in practice and put those lessons to work in games.
Try honor each player with a game ball at some point in the season, as long as you can attach some truthful specific praise to presenting the award.
Sometimes it's as simple as rewarding a player for an obvious scoreboard accomplishment, such as pitching a complete game shutout. But you'll find you put the most into your players and get the most out of them when you reward the less talented for their hard work and learning life lessons, which encourages them and their teammates to continue doing so.
Keep Coaching
PCA workshops often emphasize the “next play,” training coaches and parents to help their athletes focus on the “next play,” regardless of mistakes, disagreeable officiating, tough opponents or crowd noise. To illustrate this principle, our PCA Trainers often use this quotation from Stanford Women's Volleyball Coach John Dunning: "So many kids think they're great competitors because they growl the loudest or cuss the loudest. I define a competitor as the person who is most often ready to play and win the next play."
Ironically, sometimes coaches forget to apply the same principles to themselves. Facing tough times during a game, coaches also need a way to remind themselves to be ready for the next play.
Using Mistake Rituals with their players -- such as the “flush it” or “brush it off” techniques -- many Double-Goal Coaches cap off the ritual with the words “next play.” Coaches looking for an equivalent trigger word or phrase to recover from their own mistakes can remind themselves to “keep coaching.”
This simple alliterative imperative can instantly refocus you on the task at hand. Just as you would have your players get beyond their mistakes and any other obstacles, you owe it to them and to yourself to “keep coaching.”
Get to Know Opposing Coaches Before the Game
A great way to ensure a positive environment for your youth or high school athletes is to get to know opposing coaches. It's easy to get caught up in pre-game preparation and to not make time to introduce yourself to opposing coaches, but this is a great opportunity lost.
By shaking hands and talking with opposing coaches, you are actively modeling Honoring the Game for your players and their parents, and it sets a strong, positive tone for the competition. Double-Goal Coaches know the importance of establishing a working relationship with their opposing coaches. Among the reasons:
- To establish a basic understanding that you are both there for the players and that they come first. You might even mention that you are a Double-Goal Coach: "I'm looking forward to a great game with your team. Like you, I want to win, but I ascribe to the Positive Coaching Alliance's Double-Goal Coach model. We are going to do our best to play in a way that respects you and your team. Honoring the game is important to us."
- To know coaches’ names, so you can get their attention when necessary. It's much easier to talk with your opposing number when things go wrong if you've had friendly contact beforehand.
- To humanize yourselves to each other (rather than the all-too-common demonization of opponents). If you have never met the opposing coach, likely in a travel team situation, go out of your way to introduce yourself, as soon as he or she seems to have a spare moment, away from players and parents. Make it a friendly introduction…not a chance to gain competitive advantage. To assure your opponent, you might even offer up a nugget of information about what you are trying to work on with your own team. “We’re 3-1 this season, and every game has been close, so I’m trying to get our players to feel less pressure and enjoy the game no matter what the score.”
In a house league, you have an even better opportunity to get onto the same page as opposing coaches. Perhaps you have attended the same Positive Coaching Alliance workshops or cross paths in your children’s schools or the supermarket and therefore share common values and concerns.
Those may be grounds for a deeper discussion of coaching philosophy, which creates an even stronger foundation for the positive culture you are establishing in your league. At root, most people become coaches because they want to contribute to the health, well-being and growth of youth. Respectful, friendly pre-game conversations among coaches help ensure they adhere to those values.