Saw two things over the past couple weeks. First, I attended my son's basketball banquet. I love these banquets! Everyone is jazzed, a sense of completing something important, and just good fellowship. One of the coaches described each player and identified one specific positive character trait, then charged the player with a bible verse. What a great, encouraging thing to do! For example, a player might be told they have focus or courage. What an encouragement that is. In management consulting, they say to focus on your strengths and that was what this coach was doing.
Secondly, I attended a girls volleyball game and watched to coach. Always a smile on his face, no yelling or intensity. No drama. You know what those girls did during the game? They smiled a lot, kept things positive when they were down, and stayed focused. Sometimes I think we as coaches are so focused on winning or the importance of winning that we 'will' our players to play better and that comes out in body language, tone of voice and what we say. But is that really the goal of a coach? The coach's job is to equip their players so they can win. The girls team lost - it was close - but the coach was still smiling and encouraging. I've said before that one of the problems that players need to overcome is the video that plays in their head. We love soccer because we see Lionel Messi dribble through four other players and score. It's exciting! Since our players don't have that level of skill, they need to focus on other things like effective passing, dropping the ball, etc. Maybe coaches have the same problem. They see Jim Boeheim from the Syracuse Orange pacing up and down, intense and yelling a lot. Drama. And we as coaches have that tape playing in our heads. Time to turn off that tape.
