Coach & Athletes at High Levels

Coach & Athletes at High Levels

 I am a big believer that the environment that the person is in has a great influence on their success or failure. Now I’m not saying you’re screwed if you are not in a supportive atmosphere then you’re just never going to succeed at anything you do. Ultimately, it comes down to the individual, but it can be a great advantage if they are somewhere where they feel supported and cared for. This can be true for a lot of things in life such as academics, chasing your dreams, playing sports, etc. However, in this blog I mainly want to discuss how this holds true for coaching, especially at a high level. When you think about coaching or a coach, who do you think of first? Is it a person who made you fall in love with your sport? Someone who made you feel supported and who believed in you? Someone who made you hate your sport? It is always amazing to me how one person who is placed to lead a group to win games can actually be so influential on someone’s life and the choices that they make.  Being a coach is more than drawing the X’s and O’s on the clipboard, it’s a partnership that serves to guide and inspire the athletes around them. To me I believe that the main purpose of a coach is not to win. Although, this is a big part of their job and the reason why they were put into that position, that is not their main purpose. Their main purpose is to work with their athletes and help the to uncover their untapped potential, developing their skills, and helping them grow as an athlete and as a person. Being a coach has the opportunity to assist the individuals around them and help them achieve being a high performing athlete. The point of this blog is to examine what it means to be a coach, what’s the importance of coaching, and how it can be transformative for coaches and who they coach. 

 

Coaching and its significance: At the core of coaching, it is a pathway that can be used to achieve success. It can serve as a catalyst for athletes to start putting together in their head the realization of the potential that they possess, sparking hope and giving them the confidence and empowerment to embark on the journey of discovering themselves. When you really think about it and what coaching is it is a cornerstone for athletes reaching achievement because of if they do it correctly, they are literally helping their athletes by taking their raw talent and seeing their potential and helping to mold it and polish into their fullest potential. Coaches can serve as the voice that helps to push athletes beyond what their athletes think they can do. From the little kid that played in a rec league at their local church to the well-rounded and polished high-performance athletes, coaches spark to create the fire of excellence that helps pushes athletes toward reaching optimal performance. Although, when it is done correctly, coaching go further than just sports. When you really think about it is a key factor when looking at things such as personal development, discovering oneself, increasing hope, and a helping hand when dealing with challenges. I think every athlete can agree on is that a setback or setbacks will occur sometime in your career. They’re inevitable. However, being supported by someone who can be viewed with immense respect and can be called upon even in your darkest times for support and advice can help to empower them in confronting the fears in their head. I truly believe that having a coach who is great at what they do and is a person who you feel believes in you, can fully trust, and who has your best intentions at heart is a big key in capturing success at the highest level of athletics. 

 

As an athlete who has played at one of the highest levels, I feel as though I can speak a lot about this topic. I’ve been involved in sports since the time I could walk, so I have had many different types of coaches in my life. I’ve had the screamers, the ones that sit back and let you do what you want, role models, some that didn’t really know what they were doing, any type of coach you can think of I’ve probably had it. Now that my career in athletics is over and I look back to different eras within my athletic career I can correlate my performance to my relationship that I had with my coach. I’m not going to share any names or specific details, but I am going to share two different experiences of my relationship with a coach at the time, and also discuss my feelings toward the sport and how I was performing when I played for them. Here are my two examples of how two different coaches had different impacts on me as a player. We will call these coaches Coach A and Coach B.

 

 

Coach A 

This coach created an environment in their program where they seemed as though they are caring and genuine but like most coaches it was a façade that they created. When they would call you into their office to have conversations with you and see how you were the conversation would typically start by them asking you questions but while you answer them, they would look in any direction other than yours. Showing you that they were not interested in what you were saying. Then they would divert the conversation to when they were the focal point and not you. During times when you were sick and hurt, they would never reach out to you to check if you were okay. On Christmas they would only texts three people on your team privately. Showing you that they had favorites and did not care about you. They never took the time to form a relationship on the court, let alone off the court. This was one of the first times in my career that I felt as though my coach did not care about me or had my best interests at heart, and it affected me. That season, I was never excited or eager to go to practice because I felt as though I did not belong there. My performance suffered too, I am typically the type of player that leaves everything out on the court and is always giving my max effort when I play. When the season started, I still played like me, but as the season dragged on the passion that I once had faded and as bad as it sounds, I didn’t really care because it felt as though anything I did was never good enough for them. Mentally I had checked out of that season. By the halfway point of our season my teammate and I had a countdown of how many games we had left until it was finally over. And I did not feel this was because my coach didn’t play me, I was a starter for this coach and averaged a fair number of minutes. Others would have killed to be in the position that I was in because of how it looked on the outside. I felt disconnected, unimportant, and wanted nothing to do with being there. However, being there impacted me in so many ways, and ultimately effected the love and passion I had for the game.

 

Coach B

This coach to some would have seemed insane because of their intense and fiery nature. They were loud, wild, animated, and passionate. At first this intimidated and frightened me. I worried what had I gotten myself into by playing for a crazy person. However, these fears quickly drifted away. From the first day that I met them they began building a relationship with me. When we would have conversations, they were rarely ever about basketball but asking questions to try to get to know me. They would always hold and maintain eye contact with me, sometimes a little too much, and would show me that they cared about what I had to say. During the times in the season where I was sick, they would send me texts asking how I was doing and would even at times deliver food to my place to make sure I way okay. For holidays and my birthday, they next missed a text. All these little things added up and showed me that they care and had my back. This was not just a special treatment given to me or a “favorite” on the team, they treated everybody who played for them this way. Because they went above and beyond for us, it gave us the desire to want to do the same for them when we played. Every time we played, we wanted to represent them and they them proud. So we played fierce and gave it our all, because if they could do that for us then why couldn’t of we have done that for them? Personally, when i played for them, I had experienced some of my best basketball because I felt supported and felt as though they believed in me. When I went out there, I could play freely without being afraid or any feelings as though they did not want me there or didn’t believe in me. Everyday coming to practice I was truly excited. Were there days where it was hard to get out of bed and my body hurt? Yes. Were there days where I wanted to just lay in bed and not do anything? Yes. But once I got to the gym and I was there I was genuinely always excited and happy to be there and wanted to be there. Now I’m not saying they never made me mad, or they never yelled at, sometimes it felt as though I was the only one they were yelling at. However, I knew no matter what was said or done it was because they truly cared for me and wanted the best for me. 

 

Not all athletes are the same in how they handle being coached. Some cannot handle being yelled at and it causes them to shut down. Then then there is other who need to be coached hard and yelled at to help light a fire under them when they need it. After looking back at my college career, I have realized that I am option two. I believe that this is because of the environment that I was raised in, my parents never screamed at me but would raise their voice when I was not doing something they wanted. I have always been the type that I hate disappointing people so when this would combine with a coach yelling at me to get my head of my butt it would light this fire in me. Now this was also probably anger from being yelled at, but it would cause me to make the flip and perform the way that was wanted out of me. However, I have also been around girls where we had the same coach and what worked for me did not work for them. One time an old teammate of mine was yelled at in a manner that instead of motivating her made he cry and then for the rest of practice she became very dismissive and unresponsive. Why am I bringing this up? Although I only touched on it, I think these examples help to show not every athlete is the same and how you coach them can have an impact on them. It can be negative or positive. That is why I believe that it so important for coaches especially at high levels to take the time to form genuine connections with their athlete. Doing so allows them to get to know and understand the ways in which their athlete is wired and what strategies they can use to help them accomplish their dreams and reach their full potential.