Coaches Toolbox

Coaching for Life Not Just a Season

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John Callahan
Coach/Author/Speaker

Coach Shares questions on “Why do you Coach” and discusses the different reasons someone would consider becoming a coach. Coach Callahan talks about character both good and bad and the fact that people get hired for their skills and get fired for their character. Coach gives great examples of both good and bad character and the attributes that make up and distinguish an individual. Coach Callahan discusses and shares his experience on what Character qualities you want in a player to have. Coach provides an excellent presentation on character and passion for coaching.

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Character Building and Leadership

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Teams need leadership and guidance. Players want and need leadership from their coach. Here are 10 thoughts regarding leadership and character building for you to consider when leading your teams.

 This article was provided by Coaches Network

Bruce Brown and Rob Miller of Proactive Coaching have posted the following thoughts and advice for coaches in providing leadership to the athletes:

•  Former UCLA basketball player Ken Washington on legendary Coach John Wooden, whom he played for in helping the Bruins win national championships: “Coach didn’t teach character; he nurtured it.  He nurtured values just like he nurtured your talent. Honesty, being unselfish, caring about your teammates, a good work ethic were all stressed constantly.  He gave respect even when discipline was doled out.”

•  Discipline is essential in successful team cultures.  It provides structure, order, direction, purpose, and focus.  Coaches and team leaders must respond to any teammate or coach’s undisciplined behavior by holding them accountable.  If you do not confront poor behavior then the message is that accountability is not part of the team’s values or that it doesn’t apply to everyone.

•  Here’s a letter from a team in search of a coach to provide them with leadership and guidance:

Dear Coach:

We need you.  We need you to lead.  We need to be able to trust you.  We need you to be strong, consistent and positive. We really need you in tough times.  We will look to you for how you handle, pressure, stress, mistakes and failure.  We need you to consistently correct and improve our skills.  We are counting on you to hold us accountable to the Core Covenants of our team.  We need you to be direct and honest.  We need you to know when to push us beyond our comfort zone and when to put your arm around us.  We need you to protect the team from all the outside pressure we have to deal with.  For those of us with difficult family situations, we need you to be a parent as well as a coach and show us what being part of a family looks and feels like.  We will be a direct reflection of you and your leadership.  We need you.
Your Team

•  Coaches of Significance: Be assured that your players know the job you are doing and are growing into men and women in your presence because of your leadership. They will stay in your life long after the last game is over. You are a coach of significance… you know your purpose and mission. Your athletes are thankful.

•  Anything you can do to improve the individual character of your athletes or the collective character of your team gives you a better chance for success in every way… including on the scoreboard.

•  Effective leaders catch their people doing things right and praise them sincerely.  They confront their people when they are violating team covenants as a teachable moment and redirect them without apology.  Above all, they are honest with them.  Strong leaders of integrity are difference makers.

•  Most teams like to measure themselves by their most talented people, but the truth is that the strength of the team is always impacted by the weakest attitude.  No matter how you try to cover it up, rationalize it or compensate for it, eventually poor attitudes surface and negatively impact teams.  Protect and defend your team culture .

•  Can you make this statement about your team:  “If you are not sure how hard to work or what decisions to make away from the team, all you have to do is watch and follow our seniors.” Great team cultures are built with intentional leadership.

•  Two players violate standards and school policies on alcohol. Two different families:  Family #1—The player automatically knows he will also be held accountable and face consequences when he gets home; or Family #2—The next morning, the parents are at school with a lawyer wanting to blame the coach and the school policy.  Down the road, which of these two kids has a better chance to be a successful teammate, employee or marriage partner?  Coaches and parents should be working together to raise strong kids.

•  Have you clearly defined what an “athlete” looks like in your team culture?  Have you defined it so clearly that the image cannot be misunderstood?  There is a big difference between being “athletic” and being a true athlete that has a teachable spirit, is accountable, mentally tough, selfless, and disciplined.   If you haven’t presented the right definition of being an athlete to  your players, don’t expect your athletes to mirror this definiation.

 

Proactive Coaching published materials designed to help define, build and empower leadership. Their resources include:

• Proactive Leadership, Empowering Team Leaders (book) 

• Captains, Seven Ways to Lead Your Team (booklet) 

• Captains and Coaches Workshop (DVD)

• The Impact of Trust (DVD)

For more information, visit www.proactivecoaching.info


When Will What We Know, Change What We Do?

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By John O’Sullivan, founder of Change the Game Project

“My daughter and I had to miss her grandfather’s funeral when she was 12 for a cheerleading competition.”

I had to read that twice to be sure what I was reading. This was an actual comment we received recently on Facebook. We receive a lot of heartbreaking stories from readers, but this one sentence stopped me in my tracks. The mere thought that the funeral of a parent would play second fiddle to a 12-year-old cheerleading competition simply boggles the mind.

We hear incredible tales of missed family events, as well as coaches ordering players to skip siblings weddings and other life events. We hear of injuries that used to only occur in college age players now occurring weekly in kids as young as age 12. We hear about families forced to choose between supporting their child’s emotional and psychological well-being or allowing them to continue playing high-level sports for an unaccountable, bully coach. But missing a funeral took the cake.

“When will what we know change what we do?”

This was a question posed on a call the other day with the Quality Coaching Collective, a first of its kind group of dynamic authors, speakers, researchers and coaches from across the globe that I am honored to be a part of. All of us on the call work everyday to shift the paradigm in youth sports and physical literacy. We work with organizations to make the changes to their mission, values, coaching and accountability to make sports more user friendly for the kids involved. The question we all ask ourselves is this:

Why doesn’t science, research and coaching best practices drive our youth sports model?

Sadly, it’s because youth sports and physical movement education have become, in far too many cases, more about the needs of the business of sport than the needs of the child in sport. When over 70% of kids quit sports before high school, it is their way of telling us that this model is not working for them.

It is time for what we know to change how we do things in youth sports.

We know that playing multiple sports and getting adequate rest and time off is a key component to preventing injury and burnout.(click here for American Society for Sports Medicine position statement). We also know that in many sports less specialization prior to the teenage years is a greater predictor of elite level performance. Sadly, what we do is continually force children to specialize far too young, increasing the dropout rate and resulting in an up to 70-90% higher injury rate according to this recent study by Neeru Jayanthi.

What we know is that autonomy, enjoyment and intrinsic motivation are critical components of long-term sport performance, according to researcher Joe Baker, author of the critically acclaimed book Developing Sport Expertise. What we do, all too often, is take these away from kids. We limit a child’s ability to try many sports by forcing him or her to choose one far too early. We focus on outcomes (did you win?) instead of enjoyment (are you having fun?). As a result we prevent kids from developing the intrinsic motivation to continually improve, and to be driven to succeed without us having to even ask.

What we know is that a coach’s words can leave a lasting impact on a young athlete. A coach’s influence is never neutral! We must be intentional about everything we say and do with kids. Sadly, what we all too often do is allow coaches to treat young athletes in a way that we would never allow a teacher to treat a child. We allow poorly trained and behaved coaches to continue to work with kids, even after numerous incidents of poor behavior, because they win a few games. We allow coaches who are demeaning under the guise of being demanding. And, as author Jennifer Fraser found in her great book Teaching Bullies, we even ostracize the children and parents who try and stand up to coaches who treat others poorly.

What we know is that no young athlete says “I love it when I can hear my dad yelling at the officials.” We know that the vast majority of kids, when asked “what would you like your parents to say on the sideline of your games, emphatically say “NOTHING!” What we do is attend our children’s games, coach them on every play (“Pass, shoot, hustle!”) and disrespect officials, often over inconsequential calls. Then we become outraged when children disrespect other authority figures in their lives and ponder “where did they learn that?” Spend a weekend on the sports field. Kids hear what we say, but they imitate what we do.

What we know is that research says the #1 reason athletes play is “FUN!” Though an 8-year old might have a different definition of fun (learning new things, being with my friends) than an 18-year-old (being pushed to be my best, high-intensity competition), they still speak to the importance of enjoyment. What we do too often is take the “play” out of playing sports, and say “we are here to work.” Kids don’t work sports; they play them.

What we know is that randomized, games-based learning promotes creativity, decision making, assessment and more transferability to competition. What far too many coaches still do, unfortunately, is promote blocked/massed practice, endlessly repeating the same technique over and over to “get our touches in.” It’s not that this doesn’t have some effect, simply that it’s about the least effective way to make use of your limited team training time.

What we know is that clubs who follow a proper athletic development model, and craft a mission statement and values focused on developing the person, not simply the athlete, will create more loyalty and greater player retention than those who do not. What we often see are organizations that pay lip service to child development and values, and do not hold parents, coaches and athletes accountable for upholding those values. What a huge abdication of responsibility and lost opportunity to really make an impact on kids.

What we know is that sport development is all about the process and long term focus. There are no overnight successes. Failure and adversity are all part of the process and focus on excellence. Sadly, what we do is operate out of fear. We get caught up in short term outcomes (did we win this weekend?) vs the focus on continuous improvement (what did we learn from losing that will help us get better?).

Finally, and most importantly, what we know is that what our children need most, after a tough game, is something to eat and to know that we love watching them compete and play. They don’t need a critical recap on the ride home. They don’t need their coach’s decisions questioned, or teammates criticized. Just love them, unconditionally, and take into account their state of mind before you offer up your thoughts on how to get better.

When will what we know change what we do?

How long can we keep ignoring the research and evidence on sporting best practices?

Change will happen when great parents and coaches stand up and build youth sport organizations and school programs that serve the needs of the kids. Change will happen when the silent majority take a stand against the vocal minority of adults who care more about the bottom line than the welfare of children.

Change will only happen one family, one club and one town at a time. As author Carl Safina writes, “one doesn’t wait for a revolution. One becomes it.”

Let’s align what we know and what we do. Our kids deserve it.

Changing the Game Project  is a site that is your one stop shopping for  the latest and greatest information, research, and best practices regarding high performance, motivation, Long Term Athletic Development, fitness, nutrition, college recruiting, and more.

 

Coach Sullivan is offering a FREE video series which is part of his Coaching Mastery program which includes motivational and team building techniques used by some of the top coaches in the world. To gain access to his free video series click the link below or the image at the left.

Coaching Mastery

 

 


Mental Rehearsal: Part of Practice

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Do you want to help the athletes become more confident and self-assured when they find themselves in different game-time situations? Do you want them make better decisions? Perform at a higher level? Learn how to teach your players visualization or mental rehearsal.

This article was provided by Coaches Network

By Anthony Lanzillo

When you are coaching athletes, it’s very important to provide mental skills training along with the physical conditioning program and overall development of their athletic skills. One essential tool for all athletes is what we call visualization or the mental rehearsal. It’s showing your athletes how to use mental imagery and using such senses as sight and sound to mentally practice how they want to perform in the actual game. It is a fairly simple process to teach and learn.

This process will strengthen their mental skills, and thereby, help the athletes become more confident and self-assured when they find themselves in different game-time situations. It gives the athletes a stronger mindset, and assists them in making smarter decisions. By mentally practicing how they plan to perform, they will be focused on themselves, on what they control, on being task-oriented and what they want to accomplish.

For athletes who don’t use this process, they are often distracted and overwhelmed by negative feelings or fears. They can easily think about things they don’t control and worry about what they don’t want to do or have happen to them in the game.

The mental rehearsal is something that you can introduce and incorporate into team practices. Let’s say you are at a football or lacrosse practice, and running through different plays on offense or defense. After you have the offensive unit physically run through a play, you have the players get back into their positions at the beginning of that play. Then you ask the players to do the following five-step exercise:

  • Take a deep breath and slowly close your eyes.
  • Identify the play you just ran through.
  • Identify your primary role and responsibility in this play.
  • Identify a personal strength that will help you in this play.
  • Identify the performance objectives during the play (a short series of visual and verbal cues that highlight specific moves you are making in the play).
  • Identify a positive feeling from a successful performance.

You can even give your players a “mental prep playbook,” a notebook with single-page forms called “mental prep playsheets” where they can take a moment to write down their answers to the five steps for each play. After writing it down, you want to encourage your players to review their mental rehearsals of the different plays on a regular basis. They need to understand that the more they do their mental rehearsals of these plays, the more confident they will be when they find themselves playing in the actual games.

Also, during the team practices, you can talk to your players about how to plug into a short list of visual or verbal cues during a game. The moment a player finds himself in a particular play he can simply focus on:

  • Role
  • Personal Strength
  • First Performance Objective
  • Positive Feeling

In fact, during practice when the team is scrimmaging, you can blow the whistle to stop the scrimmage, yell a player’s name, say “cue” or “plug in,” and have that player verbally state his five steps in his mental rehearsal for that play. You want your players to immediately go to the key mental prompts or cues when they find themselves in different plays during competition.

 

A mental health professional for over 20 years, Anthony “Tone” Lanzillo has more recently been exploring how athletes can use mental skills in their practices and games. He works with athletes in such sports as softball, boxing, field hockey, football, soccer, basketball and lacrosse and writes for FirstDown Playbook, Coaches Training Room, Ultimate Hockey Source, Lax Playbook, Online Soccer Coaching, World of Basketball, Lacrosse All-Stars, Coaches Clipboard and Coach Book. Click here for more information on his ideas and services.


3 Ways Coaches Can Inspire Their Athletes

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By John O’Sullivan, founder of Changing the Game Project

A few nights ago I went to a graduation. Not a high school or a college graduation, but one far smaller, and far more personal. In fact, there were only seven kids, one of which was my 9-year-old son TJ. He and six others were being recognized by their amazing teacher for their dedication, hard work, and persistence in overcoming their struggles with a language-based learning disability that strikes one in five children. They all have dyslexia.

The teacher began the ceremony with a talk about self-efficacy.

“Self-efficacy,” he said, “is the belief that your effort and hard work matter. It’s a child’s belief in their ability to achieve their goals and complete tasks. In our schools, in our sports, so many times these kids lose that belief because of a learning disability. They are called slow learners, they are called frustrating, they can’t sit still so they are called disruptive, and yet, in reality, they probably work harder than anyone else in their class. They just have a disability that impedes their progress, through no fault of their own. They work so hard, and yet are led to believe that their work does not matter. So they eventually give up.”

One by one the seven kids were called to the front of the room, and their teacher described their unique gifts, their unique paths, and how they had overcome their own unique struggles in school and in life. He gave each of them an award related to their contribution and development, not just in reading, but in art, in laughter, and in relationships with others. He caught them being good at things and recognized them for it. And as he described each award, I saw an amazing thing: a smile on each kids face that could light up a room.

As the famous conductor and speaker Benjamin Zander says: “Look at their eyes. If their eyes are shining, you know you’re doing it.”

I saw seven pairs of eyes shining that day. Which brings us to an important question:

Are your players’ eyes shining when you coach?

Does your presence make your athletes day a better one?  Do you recognize each and every one of them for their unique gifts and contributions to the team? Or do you only spend time with a few of your players, likely the starters and/or upperclassmen. Have you ever wondered why you had a roster full of talent, but no team? I have.

Many years ago I had a group with lots of talent, but no team. We had players dissatisfied with their role. We lacked effort in training. We were outworked in games. I had front row seats watching our season go down the tubes. Thankfully, I also had a friend and mentor who happened to be a 6x national champion NCAA soccer coach, Jerry Yeagley from Indiana University, whose words stick with me to this day:

“John, coaching isn’t just running practices and X’s and O’s. It’s about culture, and unity, and recognizing every player for what they bring to the table. Your problem is you have a bunch of piano players. Every team needs some piano carriers too, and if you want people to carry the piano in training and games it’s up to you to let them know that they matter too.”

Those words from Jerry nearly two decades ago changed how I coached, how I led, and how I set up my teams. But something far more important happened that day.

The fact that the legendary Jerry Yeagley cared enough to help me – an unknown, unimportant college assistant and youth coach – made my eyes shine.  He made me feel like the most important person in the room. He made me remember how my favorite coaches made me believe in myself and let me know that my contribution mattered. And he made me feel like I was progressing, and I had a future in coaching.

What I realized that day was this: If I can make my players feel like Coach Yeags just made me feel they would run through a wall for me, and for each other. If I could get them to believe in themselves like his words made me believe in myself, then nothing could stop us. I learned that day that coaching isn’t only about X’s and O’s, but about relationships. I realized for the first time that if I could win the relationship game, I could help my teams win the game on the field too.

I realized that I had to make my own players’ eyes shine!

Most coaches ignore the relationship game. They assume that players know when they are doing well and when they are not. They forget how great it feels to get a compliment, or to be trusted and believed in. They forget what it was like as a player to see progress, and have your contribution recognized. Maybe that is the way they were coached, so they assume since they were OK with it, everyone is OK with it. But they are not.

Another mistake coaches make is that they spend too much time focusing on their top performers. Yet what about the other players on the team, the ones who don’t get the recognition? The ones whose names don’t appear in the paper, and may not even appear on the game day roster. They may never score the winning goal, or make the big save, yet they are a vital part of the culture of championship teams. They make practices better. They are the top players #1 fans. They can be your biggest allies, or your worst adversaries. How do we serve them?

I recently had the opportunity to see business and organizational health guru Pat Lencioni  speak about his excellent new book The Ideal Team Player, and he discussed three areas bosses often fail their team members. In essence, he was discussing how we fail to make our people’s eyes shine.

Every athlete, whether a star player or the last one off the bench, needs three things from a coaching staff. The presence of these three things will help get every player to buy in. The absence, or worse, the antithesis, will destroy your culture, and tear your team apart.

Here are three keys to making your athlete’s eyes light up, improving performance, and building a championship culture:

Recognition: Every player on a team needs recognition. I am not talking about trophies for everyone and 8th place ribbons. I am talking about the absolute need for a coach to take the time to recognize the contribution of every player who comes to practice, gives her all, and fulfills a role. I am talking about the need for catching every player being good, and epitomizing core values. You see, the star players usually get plenty of recognition. They win MVP’s and all-league awards, and they get recognized by classmates and fans. But what about the players who don’t get to play? Without recognition, these players see themselves as anonymous. As Lencioni says, “people who see themselves as invisible or generic cannot love their jobs, no matter what they are doing.” The same goes for every player on every team. No matter how much they love a sport, eventually they will grow to hate it if they do not get recognized for contributing something to the effort.

Relevance: Every player needs a role. Some can be top scorer, others the top defender. Some can be leaders, some can be supporters, some can be the smart guy, others the funny guy. But most importantly, every player must be something. Players without a role feel irrelevant. They feel like their hard work and effort don’t matter. A coach who sends his reserves to work with the assistant coach every day and never coaches them makes them feel irrelevant. A coach who never calls a reserve player into the office and compliments them for working hard, raising the level of practice, improving their shooting, something, anything, will lose that player. You must find something about every player and let them know how that contributes to the greater good, and that their work matters. If you believed at your job that no one would miss you if you were gone, chances are you would jump at the chance to do something else, and rarely go the extra mile. If your players feel the same way they will disengage too.

A way to measure their contribution: It’s easy to measure goals and assists, points and defensive stops, tackles, and fumble recoveries. It’s easy to measure a time in a 100 yd dash or a swim meet. But how do you measure things that are harder to measure? Let’s face it, a defender on a soccer team might never have a measurable statistic beyond minutes played, and if a coach consistently touts the goal scorers and shot takers, that defender can quickly start to believe that her contribution doesn’t matter. But at least she is playing! What about the kid who doesn’t play?

You can have players measure free throws made, or juggling in soccer, and chart progress over a season. You can measure who shows up first or leaves last, and give recognition for that. You can also find tangible ways to measure your team core values. If your team values effort, you can give out hustle points in practice. If you value positivity, you can measure how often a player makes a teammate smile, or gives an encouraging word to a player who is struggling. Every sport is different, but the more things you can measure, the more ways you can demonstrate how an athlete is not only progressing, but contributing to the greater good. We value the things we can measure, so find ways to measure how each and every athlete contributes, or doesn’t contribute, so you can measure progress. In the words of Lecioni, “without tangible means of assessing success or failure, motivation eventually deteriorates as people see themselves as unable to control their own fate.”

If your talented team is going down the tubes, before you look at your athletes, you need to look at yourself. If you don’t like what is happening, it’s not only up to your players to fix it. It’s up to you to fix it.

Do all your players feel valued? If not, fix it.

Do all your players have a role? If not, make them feel relevant.

Do you measure everyone’s contribution? If the answer is no, figure out a way how to.

“Who am I being that my players’ eyes are not shining?” asks Benjamin Zander. Who am I indeed.

Let’s make our athletes’ eyes shine. We might just win a championship. More importantly, we might just change a life.

Changing the Game Project  is a site that is your one stop shopping for  the latest and greatest information, research, and best practices regarding high performance, motivation, Long Term Athletic Development, fitness, nutrition, college recruiting, and more.

 

Coach Sullivan is offering a FREE video series which is part of his Coaching Mastery program which includes motivational and team building techniques used by some of the top coaches in the world. To gain access to his free video series click the link below or the image at the left.

Coaching Mastery