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I love sport, all sports and it is something that brings me great joy and enjoyment. Over the years I have been fortunate enough to be able to coach young men in their chosen sport. With our season now over and the boys now moving on to the senior ranks, I have had the opportunity to reflect on the impact that I had on the boys.
Here are some of the lessons that I learnt along the way:-
1. Not everyone can win.
I think this is so simple and yet so hard to embrace. Only one team will win the premiership each season (the rest don’t). In every game one team wins and one loses. In an individual sport 1 person wins and the rest don’t. So making winning the objective is very challenging as the chances of success are usually against you. Yet we all do want to win. You need to find other (better ) objective to chase.
2. Very few make it to the big leagues
The percentage of players who are able to make a career out of their chosen sports is remarkably low. The chances of any 1 player making it all the way again are very slim. I am not saying that you should discourage the kids, just be aware that it take much more that pure talent to reach the top. When I was 10 one of our players said that he was going to play Rugby League as his job when he was older (and he meant it). We all watched with great pride as Trevor went on to have a long and great career that included premierships, and representing his country. Trevor was one of those special people who did everything in his powers to achieve what he did. He was a freak.
3. It is not about the coach
Our ego can get in the way and cause us to some times think it is about us. When the team wins, well that was because of the coach, and obviously when the team loses then that was the players fault. At the end of the day it is never about the coach. You have the right to enjoy the achievements of the team, but they are never your achievements. This is different to senior sports where superstar coaches prevail. In junior sport it can only be about the players and providing them with the opportunities that they need. Even if this means that they do not achieve scoreboard success on every occasion.
4. Parents must be involved
If you are like most adults, you want to make sure that your players and your children succeed in the games that they are playing. When they win, you see how much better they feel about themselves, and you can see the potential that you know they have really coming out. Every child that is playing a sport will need the moral support from both parents and coaches. Kids just want to please their parents. If the parents are not engaged then the children will stop playing as well.
5. Team is important
The feeling of being part of something bigger than you is important for adults, and especially so for young adults. Sports can create the environment where everybody can come together to work towards a common objective. The star goal scorer in soccer doesn’t get to score the goal if the defender doesn’t take the ball off of the opposition and pass it to the midfielders who then set up play before delivering the ball to the eventual goal scorer. In these situations a coach has the opportunity to not only praise the goal scorer, but also the other players involved in the scoring move. Achieving this team feeling is usually pretty simple in a team environment, but can also be achieved in sports where players compete as individuals. The sense of team I felt when I competed in Triathlons was awesome. Your training partners would pat you on the back as they past you on the course, also fellow competitors even complete strangers would offer encouraging words, to lift your spirits.
6. Teach them to love the game
One of the most important things a coach can achieve is to instill a love of the game/sport into the young competitor. As we said earlier not everyone can go on to be a champion, but everyone can continue to play their chosen sport for many years is they love it. The best way to do this is by developing the skills that are necessary to allow the child to compete at a reasonable level. Also by showing them the beauty in the game. A sweetly struck line drive in baseball, a goal in the top right hand corner in soccer, and great tackle in rugby league etc. This understanding and appreciation for the game can help to keep young players in the game for longer.
So how do you as the coach find the right balance? Even if your intentions are at their best when you are working with your child in a sport, you want to make sure that you know just how far to go.
There is a thin line between offering the moral support and stepping over it to expecting the children and youth to do specific things. As soon as you, as a parent or coach, begin to expect things from the child and tell them that they need to do better or win the game, it causes the game to work in reverse. Instead of the child gaining the self-esteem and better image of themselves that they need to, they reverse and think worse of themselves.
If you want to make sure that you are not stepping over the thin line, you can keep a check list for how you are responding to the player or child. The first item to check is to see how involved you become in the games. You will first want to ask yourself how much time you are spending on the child’s sport. You will also want to see how emotionally involved you become in the child’s activities. This is especially important if you see yourself pushing your child to be better, become more committed or play more games.
If you are working on helping your child to develop a physical activity and to stay active in a sport, it is important to know what your role is. You will want to make sure to hold an attitude towards the game that is positive and helps your child to gain new abilities. By doing this, you will be helping them recognize that the sport is fun and simply is giving them physical and mental abilities.
