Author: jpruitt

As part of our salute to coaches this fall, we posed several questions to our community.  We received great ideas. Here is a sampling of insights from coaches in field hockey, baseball, basketball, football, and dance.  We will feature more insights in coming weeks and welcome additional thoughts as you close out 2022 and gear up for 2023.

Favorite leadership development exercises for your team

1. Setting and achieving goals: We have always taken a day at the beginning to set a personal goal for each player. We then find accountability partners. We set aside time at least once per week to meet with our accountability partners to track our goal progress and make a plan for attainment.

2. The Marshmallow challenge:  Where each group is given 20 raw pieces of spaghetti, 1 yard of string, and one yard of masking tape, to build the tallest free-standing structure that can hold the whole marshmallow on the top. Communication starts happening. Doers are separated from thinkers. They all have to work together in order to win.

3. Alternating leaders: As a dance team coach, we spend a large portion of time conditioning and stretching. Every week, my team switches off who leads warm ups/stretches. I give them a skeleton of a plan and the order it has to go in. They have to fill in all the details–music, exercises, etc.–and then they lead it and teach it to the rest of the team. This gives everyone an opportunity to show and improve their leadership skills in a safe, judgment-free zone.

4. The first thing we have them do is write an essay telling why they think they should be chosen as our leader and what ideas they have that they would bring that would make us both closer as a team and better performers overall.

5. I have a weekly meeting with my leaders. We have a step-by-step process for our team to select their leaders (I do not select them). Then I meet with them weekly to discuss the team, areas of concern, plans for the coming week, input on our practice plans, etc. I also allow them to meet with the 3-5 players that are in their group daily. They can communicate and direct these groups of players. That way, they are not trying to lead the entire team, just the players in their particular group.

6. Volunteer work

New Challenges in Coaching Today

1. Lack of resiliency from both athletes and parents.

2. Time. People have a hard time respecting the good amount of time it takes to truly be good at something. My biggest struggle is parents – we never please them all… and the ones that aren’t happy always make it known. Dealing with parents is the most challenging part of coaching, in my opinion.

3. The stigma behind mental health and athletes is still very strong. Athletes usually have a mindset that they can’t have bad days, they can’t break down or not get something right away. This is so false. Mistakes need to happen to grow as a player and a team. Bad days happen and we have to honor them, accept them, and grow from them.
4. I believe that social media and the related need for instant gratification is a bigger challenge today than it has ever been before. They see success by their peers or other people their age and believe that it should be that way for everyone.

5. Parental overreach, lack of empathy to diversity, apathy in general.

Advice for New Coaches

1. Get to know your players! Don’t be afraid to set aside some time during practice for bonding activities. Building coach-player rapport is crucial to a players performance and a coaches dedication. Building those relationships and being an adult mentor figure in a player’s life could be the simple gesture they need to follow their dreams.

2. Communication is key! Recognize that every coach for every sport has different ideas and different ways of doing things. If something doesn’t go well or go the right way or how you envisioned it, don’t beat yourself up over it and most importantly don’t give up!!! Just try to do better the next time.

3. Keep it fun and remember the WHY. WHY you loved the sport. WHY you decided to coach.

4. As long as you are helping kids work to attain their goals, teaching them to love the process, and teaching them how to be a good person, then you are doing your job. Do not listen to the noise. There will be a lot.

5. Yes, you have to deal with all the stuff that is not fun–the paperwork, the officials, etc. and all the negative stuff, but remember what you get to do on a day to day basis. You get to help kids in the game they enjoy, become better at their sport and become better humans! You, as their coach, will have a much different relationship with these players than anyone else! You have a chance to really have an impact in how these young people turn out!

6. Take your focus off wins and losses. Focus your attention on being a great leader and building quality relationships with your players. Stay true to the process of just being the best you; and the wins will take care of themselves.

Developing leaders on a team takes vision, perspective, and practice. At Sport Fuels Life, we recognize the potential great leaders have to generate a team’s positive results. In order to help build the best leaders on your team, we are sharing a team leadership activity that one of our coaches has used successfully.  It can be done in a group or individually. 

A vision can be thought of as a tool to create a roadmap to follow passions and achieve some of our wildest dreams. Speaking goals into existence is the first step to achieving them. Having others hold you accountable to those goals is the next step. Have your team complete the following activity to get a clear vision.

1. Write down three goals for yourself this year.

1.

2.

3.

2. Write down three goals for your team this year.

1.

2.

3.

Perspective can be thought of as a lens to inspire new ideas and ways of doing things, as well as empathy for better understanding others. The right perspective is important to generate the right attitude, especially when reacting to unforeseen events. Complete the following activity to see how you can continue to grow your perspective.

1. What are three ways you can broaden your own experiences to help you get to where you want to be? (i.e. volunteer, tutor, internship, connect with a coach, coffee with someone you admire, etc.)

1.

2.

3.

Leadership involves others. It sets the direction and tone for a team or group to achieve the same goal. How can you win as a team if you are not all on board and committed to the same goal? 

The beauty of a team is everyone brings different strengths and weaknesses to the table. Find a time to share answers among your team to learn more about one another, zero in on that unified team goal, and develop an action plan.  And be sure it includes a huge emphasis on fun!

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By Sport Fuels Life Contributor, Athlete, and Coach Megan Houston

The rush that you feel when scoring the game-winning goal or hitting a new personal best time in a race are moments that we live for in sports. The joy of celebrating a stellar performance with a team is the reward for hard-earned labor to get to that point. While these moments are fun, we all know that they don’t happen overnight or without a little bit of challenge. That’s what makes them so much sweeter!

This is also called delayed gratification–a concept that many elite athletes and coaches understand and embrace. Athletes must sacrifice to achieve. Many times, the higher the level of play, the longer it takes to reap the reward. It may take a committed athlete a couple of years of steady effort to improve their personal best mark by just one centimeter at a time. 

Putting in dedicated hours of training each week over the course of the season prepares us for optimal performance. It may seem repetitive or can be a grind some days more than others. Keeping the end goal in sight and appreciating the growth process are keys in propelling athletes through the tough times to realize individual and team goals.

As the start of a new season approaches, fall in love with the process of getting better one day at a time, no matter what that looks like. See the big picture and embrace the difficult parts of training as well as the fun parts. It’s a process; fortunately, it’s rewarding and fun! 

Related Quote

As we watch the dynamic play at the U.S. Open’s Arthur Ashe stadium, we are reminded of this quote from the tennis legend and extraordinary individual who inspired so many.  Maybe he too was thinking about delayed gratification.

“You’ve got to get to the stage in life where going for it is more important than winning or losing.”

-Arthur Ashe

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