This article was provided by Coaches Network

 

By Dr. Wade Gilbert

A great way to learn about quality coaching is to listen to coaches and athletes talk about the coaching styles they believe are most helpful for achieving success. Coverage of recent sporting events such as the women’s World Cup, and the NBA and NHL finals, provided many opportunities to hear some of the world’s most successful athletes and coaches share their insights on this topic.

Whether coaching females or males, and regardless of differences in coaching styles, these championship coaches all share one thing in common: they make building relationships with their athletes a top priority.

U.S. women’s national soccer team coach Jill Ellis, who led the American team to their first World Cup championship in 16 years, has been lauded by current and former players alike for her open and honest communication style. Moreover, she places great emphasis on learning how to connect with players in ways that are uniquely meaningful and relevant to each one of them.

Chicago Blackhawks coach Joel Quennville has gained the trust of his players, and led them to three ice hockey championships in the past six years, by keeping an open-door policy and showing a genuine interest in listening to his players.

Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr, in just his first year of coaching the team, built a culture of trust and engagement by making relationship building a regular part of his daily routine en route to the team’s first basketball championship in 40 years.

A quote from coach Kerr perhaps best summarizes the emphasis these championship coaches place on relationship building with their athletes: To me, the X’s and O’s … they’re an important part of coaching but a relatively small part. Eighty percent of it is just relationships and atmosphere.

Successful coaches have long known that the time and energy invested in building quality relationships with their players pays huge dividends. For example, one of the winningest college football coaches of all time Eddie Robinson proclaimed that showing genuine care for each of his players was the cornerstone of his coaching approach. More recently, Cameron McCormick – longtime coach of the world’s hottest golfer Jordan Spieth – revealed that building quality relationships with athletes was at the top of his the list for becoming a successful coach, based on his study of the world’s best golf coaches.

The surest way to show players that you care about them is to ask them about their lives and then give them your undivided attention. Never forget that you are coaching people first, and the sport second. Keep a file for each athlete to record notes about things and people that are meaningful to them. Regularly check in with each athlete and update their ‘life’ file.

Some high coaches like to give their athletes a survey to complete at the start of the season, with questions about their dreams, passions, favorite subjects in school, and family. Other coaches find that setting aside a few minutes before practices for ‘social time’ allows them to speak with athletes about their lives while athletes are starting to warm-up.

However, for relationship building to work, coaches must also be willing to share information about people and things that are meaningful to them. If you want your athletes to share with you, you must share with them. Ultimately, building relationships with athletes is an act of courage – both for the coach and for the athlete. Each must show the courage to be vulnerable.

Coaches show courage, and build relationships, when they create emotionally safe environments. Giving frequent encouragement and helping athletes pull the lessons from performance failures creates an environment where athletes feel safe to risk failure.

Ask any championship coach to reflect on what they cherish most from their career and they’ll tell you it was the relationships they built with their athletes along the way. Take a page from the playbooks of the world’s most successful coaches, and set aside time in your daily routine to make a personal connection with each of your athletes. This simple strategy not only leads to better performance, but makes for a more enjoyable and enriching sport experience.

 

This article is adapted from an article on the Human Kinetics “Coach Education Center” website.  Click here to read the full article.

Dr. Rick Perea

This presentation as explained by Dr. Perea deals with organizational motivation and performance along with self and team efficacy, Intrinsic versus Extrinsic motivation, and individual and team cohesion. Dr. Perea explains the difference between groups versus teams and how organizational climate and culture is formed and developed. This presentation goes into detail explaining the difference between self-efficacy and team efficacy.

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Self-reflection is necessary if you want to continually improve at anything. Coaching is no different. Here are 4 questions you should ask your self each season.

This article was contributed by Coaches Network

Coaching can be very time-consuming, leaving few opportunities to stand back and reflect on how things are going. Yet, this self-reflection is essential if you want to become better at what you do. Try to set aside time every season to ask yourself some important questions about what type of coach you are and want to become.

When you do have an opportunity to do some reflecting and self-evaluation, there are some specific strategies that will help identify where you might need to improve. In Joe Ehrmann’s book Inside Out Coaching, How Sports Can Transform Lives, Ehrmann lists four essential questions that coaches should ask themselves. These include:

1. Why do I coach?
2. Why do I coach the way that I do?
3. How does it feel to be coached by me?
4. How do I define success?

Start by answering these questions on your own. Write your answers down, read them over, and keep them in mind throughout the season. Some of these questions are difficult to answer, but that’s because they are meant to challenge you and help you develop your coaching identity.

“I have always believed that the most challenging of these questions is to answer how it feels to be coached by me,” writes Matt Percival in an article the Inside Out Coaching website. “First, it causes all of us to really examine the impact we have had on each athlete throughout the course of the season and secondly, it challenges us to come up with a way to really get honest feedback.”

In order to get this honest feedback, you will need to pose the question “How does it feel to be coached by me?” to those around you. Ask your fellow coaches and athletes to answer this question so that you can truly understand how others perceive your coaching style. You may have your own idea of what it’s like to be coached by you, but others may have a different perspective, and it’s essential that you hear their side.

This can be difficult, and you may not always like what you hear, but if you are going to become a better coach you will need to be able to accept the criticism of your athletes and coaches. Once you have heard what others have to say, the next step is to put this feedback into action. Identify any areas of weakness and develop a plan for strengthening them.

“Great coaches take the time to not only ask for feedback from a variety of sources, but they then put together an effective action plan to address the areas in greatest need of improvement,” writes Percival. “More important than the method is what each coach does with the feedback they receive. Specific action plans with measurable goals and objectives have proven to be very beneficial to many successful coaches.”

Percival suggests using a variety of methods in order to improve. These range from surveys, one-on-one meetings, small group discussions, exit interviews, and reviewing video of yourself during practices and games. He also recommends asking for feedback from sources outside of your program, such as game officials, athletic trainers, opposing coaches, coaches from other sports, athletic administrators, and parents. There is no single formula that works for everybody, but if you try these different methods you will find what works best for you.

Click here to read the full article.

Are you in pursuit of success? Of course you are.  You are a coach and  that’s what we do. The pursuit is nearly impossible if attempted by yourself. We need help. Here are 6 key pieces to cooperation.

This article and other helpful coaching tools can be found at Coach Dawn Writes 

By Dawn Redd-Kelly, Head Volleyball Coach at Beloit College.

 John Wooden is a coaching rock star and legend.   So I thought, what better gift to give my readers during this holiday season than a series on Wooden’s Pyramid of Success?  Join me for a series of posts that will delve into both the foundation and apex of his Pyramid and examine Wooden’s thoughts on Industriousness, Enthusiasm, Friendship, Loyalty, Cooperation, Competitive Greatness, and finally, Faith & Patience.

Cooperation

Most of us coaches would love to think that we are the magician’s behind the curtains of our teams…willing them to excel and exceed expectations.  But when we wake up from dreamland, we realize that we are beholden to so many groups of people that when you sit down and really think about it…success is a truly wonderful thing, a group effort, and something to be celebrated.  Now, let’s look at the:

The 6 essential pieces of cooperation

1.       Administration:  So coach, you’ve landed that sweet interview at the school of your dreams and they ask the Interview Hall Of Fame question: do you have any questions?  Well, as a matter of fact you do!  Your knowledge of your sport is only going to get you so far.  You’ll also need to know how many assistant coaches your program will be funded for, what shape your equipment is in…and if you’ve got the budget to upgrade as necessary, what the facilities (locker rooms, gyms, weight room, etc.) are like, how the travel schedule is put together and what the mode of transportation is normally.

2.       Support staff: If you think you can really succeed without the training room staff keeping your athletes in one piece, the sports information director getting the word out about how awesome your team is, and the strength and conditioning staff…well, strengthening and conditioning your team, you are living in la-la land.  Not to mention the office workers who make copies, mail letters, and make sure your credit card bill is paid on time.  They are crucial to what we do!

3.       Parents: No matter the level (youth through the collegiate ranks), parents will play a major role in our sports programs.  Whether they’re supplying orange slices, baking cookies, or making a holiday dinner for a college team that’s on the road and can’t make it home…they’re important and you’d be well served to embrace your team parents.  Additionally, building a good relationship with your parents will help when one of your players makes the inevitable grumpy call home.  The parents who feel involved and believe in you and your program will nip that in the bud.

4.       Fans: There’s no such thing as a home court advantage without them!  The ones that come to your games in body paint, or do pushups for how many points you have, or who travel all over the place just to watch you play.  Those folks are awesome and it’d probably be a good idea for your program to figure out a way to celebrate the die-hards who are always there for you.

5.       Athletes: You can know everything about your sport, but you can’t play.  Your knowledge is useless without your athletes.  They’ve got to buy-in (cooperate) to your offensive and defensive schemes, your ideas on off-season workouts, and ultimately…to you as a coach.  They’ve got to be willing to work hard every day in practice and in even harder in the classroom.  You’ve got to trust them to be good spokespeople for your program and ambassadors for your team.

6.       Coach: I haven’t forgotten about us coaches!  Our job is to be knowledgeable…that’s the way we earn the respect of our teams.  We’ve also got to be caring…once we reach that combination, that’s when our teams start running through walls for us.  We need to be able to make in-game adjustments that put our team at an advantage.  In terms of functioning within a larger group, we have to be able to manage our athletes when they’re out of our sight (in the classroom, at night when they’re out with their friends), so training up quality leaders is huge.  Finally, we’ve got to be our team’s biggest advocates.  Whether we’re fundraising or just getting the word out about good things that are happening within our programs, it’s part of the job of the head coach to get out front on these things.

As Wooden says, “in order to reach the full potential of the group, there must be cooperation at all levels.”  Hopefully you were thinking about some of the folks who help you and your team out and will thank them for their cooperation.  Next up:  competitive greatness.

This article and other helpful coaching tools can be found at Coach Dawn Writes

Here is a link Coach Dawn’s book on Motivating Female Athletes:

Are you tired of walking into practice and seeing lackluster effort from your players?  Have you had it with trying to get your female athletes to care about the team as much as you do??

Click here to find out more about Coach Dawn’s eBook: Motivating Female Athletes

Comes with a FREE PowerPoint presentation called Guarantee Your Success: Using John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success To Increase Your Team’s Cohesion.

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.

This video is provided by Glazier Clinics’ Head Coach Academy

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