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I’ll never forget my first day as coach. There I was, faced with a dozen kids looking to me for direction and instruction. I remember thinking: “What do I do now? How did I get myself into this? I know a lot about sports, but I’ve never coached.”
These sentiments are likely to flash through the mind of every sports teacher or coach on his first day in a brand new coaching role. You land up at the field or court and gather eager-to-learn children around you. Once that is accomplished — and all eyes are on you — what do you do next?
If you have no idea, you are in trouble. You have failed to prepare. Preparation is one of the most important lessons you should give to your students. Preparation leads to self-confidence and success. And more often than you think, children pick up the importance of preparation — they figure out that there’s a process, a process that transfers to the classroom and everything else — whether it’s a play, a project or test.
But let’s assume you arrive prepared. You have drawn upon memories of coaches you looked up to. You have recalled creative and fun drills, and choice bits of advice. And, perhaps more impor-tant, you have been a keen observer of your own child-ren’s coaches — of how they run training sessions, prac-tices and communicate their philosophy of sports! And you’ve learned the impor-tance of being a good role model. A good coach learns from other coaches.
Once you are prepared with a gameplan — an idea of how you are going to spend your time with your players or athletes — you can begin sharing your basic values and philosophy with your trainees. For example, are you a win-at-all-costs person? If not, how do you communicate the all-round personality and character development opportunities that sports participation and education offer? Allow me to suggest my philosophy: FUN. If your players or students aren’t having fun while engaging in a game or sport, there’s something wrong with your coaching style or system.
After graduating from Stanford University, I was drafted by the Philadelphia Warriors. I turned away from that opportunity, opting instead to earn a couple of graduate degrees. Looking back I often wonder why I chose that option. With the benefit of hindsight, it’s now clear I had been so focused on winning that I never learned to really enjoy playing basketball. Since then as coach, I have spent — and continue to spend my time — steering others around this pitfall.
However, ensuring that practice and the on-field sports experience is fun is easier said than done. The quality and quantity of fun derived by players is determined by their coach. And I’m not talking about goofy fun. Competent coaches set a positive, buoyant tone as they coach their wards. I’ve witnessed too many coaches exerting excessive pressure on students. Children or youth subjected to extreme pressure will never realise their full potential, because they’ll always be afraid to make mistakes. Great coaches know that great players and athletes learn from their mistakes and that failures are often the milestones on the road to success. The coach’s job is to ensure that his wards learn from their mistakes and don’t repeat them.
As you shape and develop your team, it’s only natural to assess the special skills and talent of team members. You will be excited by the better players, and frustrated with kids less talented within your flock. This is a critical junction for the coach and his wards. There’s a danger that you become so keen on developing your stars that you neglect your middle-of-the-pack players. A good mentor makes each trainee feel valuable and resists the temptation to coach only the best players. The challenge is to coach the other average, less gifted kids. The goal should be to raise up the bad to good and good to excellent, and keep all players interested and motivated in their chosen sport.
Allow me to close with a reflection: Youth sports has taken on a much more serious cast in my country. The advent of travel teams, year-round sports and overlapping sports, together with aspirants for scholarships and pro careers, have combined to impose heavy and unnecessary pressure on youth in sports. Pressure is exerted from many sources — societal needs, technological innovation, and parental expectation. It can take all the fun and camaraderie out of sports and games.
As coach, you have the opportunity to balance fun and enjoyment with focus and purpose. Coaching is about developing children and youth and everybody having fun in the bargain. It starts with teaching fundamentals, but the aim is also to instill values — hard work, team play, managing adversity and practicing honesty — values that help build character of children and youth which will enable them to find success in the future. Beyond the arenas and stadia which assess sports capability and achievement, the success of a student in other fields of endeavour — and in life itself — is a great coach’s pride.
(Dr. George Selleck is a San Francisco-based advisor to EduSports, Bangalore)