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Welcome to the May 2003 Coaching & Sports section! As always,
we continue to bring you original articles written by a diverse
group of professionals in coaching and sport psychology. We start
with Coaching Scientist, Dr. Wade Gilbert who contributed a short
discussion on motivating athletes via positive coaching. Check out
the links to ESPN's website which featured several interviews with
successful coaches as well as Dr. Gilbert's empirical support.
With the warm weather approaching, thoughts turn to springtime sports
such as track and field and baseball or softball. Our next two articles
featured in this month's issue are written by coaches with extensive
experience in these sports.
In the second article, Joe and Dovey Herzog, two highly-respected
and successful coaches, share their philosophy and approach to coaching
the middle and high school athlete. Over their combined 50+ years
of coaching, they have won numerous awards for their work including
the California Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation
and Dance (CAHPERD) Boys and Mens Athletic Division Honor Award
for Middle School Athletics and Physical Education and the California
High School Coach of the Year for Women's Track and Field. Don't
miss an opportunity to hear what these talented educators have to
say about coaching from a holistic perspective.
Brian Cain, a baseball coach and graduate student in sport psychology
at California State University, Fullerton, is the author of our
third article this month. In his article, Brian describes techniques
that coaches can use before, during and after practice to get optimal
results from themselves and their athletes. This article is based
on his work in the Robur'58 Baseball Club in Holland, but the techniques
outlined are applicable to any coach striving to create successful
practice environments.
We hope you enjoy these feature articles. Please don't hesitate
to contact us if you would like to comment on these articles or
submit your own ideas for publication.
Jenelle N. Gilbert
and Wade Gilbert
Coaching & Sports Section Editor
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| The Sponsor of Sportsmanship Day |
| The Institute for International Sport. Includes
a wide variety of resources. Has links to other sites, quotes, research,
relevant articles. National Sportsmanship Day Informational Packet:
includes a variety of educational materials- most useful might be
the "Discussion Questions" aimed at various age groups. |
| Motivation
through Positive Coaching |
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Wade Gilbert, California State University,
Fresno
All coaches have their own personal approach to coaching. A quick
glimpse of the nightly college and professional games reveals
a wide range of coaching styles, from hard-nosed autocrats (Bobby
Knight and John Gruden) to more democratic laid-back approaches
(Phil Jackson and Tony Dungie). Evidently no one style is the
holy grail of coaching, as coaches from both ends of the spectrum
- and everywhere in between - have achieved success. The key to
understanding what drives athletes is to realize that optimal
performance is highly dependent on athletes' belief in themselves
(self-efficacy) and their personality (which is mostly genetic).
You can't change their personality, but you certainly can influence
their self-efficacy.
Surprisingly very little research has been done on the relationship
between coaching styles and athlete or team success. Most coaches
adopt a style that fits their own personality based on how they
were coached, or through observation of high profile coaches in
college and professional sports. This can be problematic because
a style that may work for Pat Riley with professional athletes
will not have the same effect with a group of 12 year-old youth
league participants.
Many people in the field of sport psychology have advocated for
a positive coaching approach, particularly with youth sport and
amateur athletes. Recently Jim Thompson and the Positive Coaching
Alliance have taken this message to the masses through their clinics
and newsletters. They stress a 5-1 positive to negative feedback
ratio for coaching. Although not scientifically validated, the
key is to emphasize the positive while also providing error feedback.
ESPN recently completed a series of articles and a television
special (Outside the Lines, March 23, 2003) on the positive coaching
approach. The series includes material from elite coaches, the
Positive Coaching Alliance, and research conducted with coaches.
Click on the link below to read the articles on ESPN.com:
The
power to motivate positively
Chat
wrap: Jim Thompson
Positive
coaching tips
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Quality Practice - Getting the Most Out of Today:
Techniques Coaches and Players Can Use to Maximize Baseball Practice |
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Brian M. Cain
California State University, Fullerton
There are many different philosophies on the strategic and mechanical
aspects of baseball. However, there is one concept that all baseball
coaches will agree on regardless of competitive level: quality
practice is essential for any team to have the best chance for
success.
Today + Today + Today = Career
In Heads-Up Baseball (Ravizza & Hanson, 1995), it is written
that one's career is the sum of all todays. This being true, there
is quite possibly no other factor as paramount in the pursuit
of success as practice. Coaches and athletes spend many more hours
on the practice field than in competition. Practice does not make
perfect, practice makes permanent, and quality practice gives
you the best chance for quality performance. The purpose of this
article is to share some of the techniques that we used at The
Robur'58 Baseball Club in Apeldoorn, Holland to help improve the
quality of our practice sessions. These techniques can be modified
and used by coaches at all levels to help improve their practice.
Before Practice
Failing To Prepare, Is Preparing To Fail
Legendary UCLA Basketball coach John Wooden has written that
many times it would take him twice as long to prepare for a practice
as it actually did to conduct it (Wooden & Jamison, 1997).
In keeping with this, we feel that the most important aspect of
quality practice is the time and energy put into its preparation
by the coach. Remember that by failing to prepare for a quality
practice, we are preparing for a quality failure.
The fist step in preparing for a quality practice is assessing
the needs of your team either through previous practice or performance.
After the assessment is made, it becomes critical to establish
goals for each practice. Next, a detailed practice plan needs
to be developed. Spending the time before practice on these elements
will minimize your stress levels because you will know what you
want to accomplish and when you will do it. Preparing for practice
ahead of time also increases motivation, intensity, direction,
and time management. Incorporating activities in practice that
are in accordance with your pre-practice goals and objectives
will help set the stage for quality practice.
A detailed practice plan should consist of clock time, as well
as the time it will take to complete the activity (i.e., 5:00
- 5:45 p.m. [45min]). This will allow players and coaches to know
how much time they will have to practice in that area and will
help them to be the most efficient with their time. The activity
should also have a specific name (e.g., front toss or quick hands),
so players and coaches will recognize the activity and be on the
same page. Having a diagram of the facility with an outline of
where the different drills or stations will take place, and a
chart with the players' names and specific rotations of where
they should be at a given time will help in time management. Also
each player will be accounted for and will be held responsible
for knowing where he (or she) should be at all times.
Writing down the specific equipment requirements (e.g., number
of balls and bats needed, pitching machine speed, etc.) will also
help to eliminate confusion or last minute scrambling. Remember
also to build in time for equipment set up and take down, transitions
between activities, and water breaks.
Posting the practice plan as soon as possible, so that the players
can see what is expected of them, can help them to get mentally
prepared. For example, they can start to use their visualization
skills to see themselves performing the way they want to that
day in practice. Sticking to the practice plan and keeping practice
to the specified time can also help players stay focused and minimize
undue stress they may feel about being able to respect academic
or social commitments scheduled for after practice.
Click
here for full article
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A coach is someone who always makes you do what you don't want
to do, so you can be who you've always wanted to be.
C. Leeman Bennett
You are a direct reflection of me. When you lose, I am a loser.
When you fight, I am a fighter. When you win, I am a winner. When
you and I work together, we are a team.
Anonymous H.S. Coach
If you're not making mistakes, then you're not doing anything.
I'm positive that a doer makes mistakes.
John Wooden
When you want to win a game, you have to teach. When you lose
a game, you have to learn.
Tom Landry
The test of a good coach is that when they leave, others will
carry on successfully.
Author Unknown
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| If you have ideas, comments,
letters to share, or questions about particular topics, please
email one of the following Coaching Section Editors: |
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| Coaching the Middle School and High School Athlete: A Holistic
Approach |
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Joe Herzog, President of the Fresno Alliance for Physical
Education and Athletics
Dovey Herzog, Yosemite Middle School
For an educator/athletics coach, there is no more daunting task
than the guiding and shaping of young lives. Coaches are charged
with teaching athletes new skills, advancing skills they already
posses, and teaching the inherent value of competition. They may
come to us with the bluff and bluster not uncommon to the 13-18
year old age group, or they may come to us completely unsure of
their worth to an athletic team. Some have competed in youth sports
from as early as five years of age and some have never stepped into
the athletic area.
So it falls to us, the coaches, to meld these ultimately varied
personalities and skills into functioning units. As the authors
of this work, we admit to having cut our coaching teeth primarily
on the "trial and error" method of athletics coaching.
Having begun our coaching careers in the 60's and early 70's we
were exposed only minimally to the formal process of understanding
the psychology of the adolescent/athletic mind. Why is it then that
we were able to achieve a modicum of success over three decades
of coaching? We believe it is because we gave full consideration
to the student-athlete as a person first and as an athlete second.
The following will provide an overview of our holistic approach
to the teenage student-athlete. We hope we can give you cause to
ponder the role of the teenager as a student-athlete, as well as
the role that athletic participation plays in the life of each child
entrusted to you.
Overall Coaching Philosophy
In order to bring out the best in their athletes, coaches must
first consider their philosophy and how it will guide their practice.
For example, is capturing a championship a desirable goal or an
all-consuming need? Are you content with developing your athletes
as best you can, trying to bring them to the knife's edge of competitive
readiness and then letting the chips fall where they may? Our philosophy
was the latter as we believed that a well-trained, confident athlete
supported by teammates, coaches and parents was most likely to be
successful.
In keeping with this, we attempted to set multiple goals with each
athlete and we were never timid about challenging our athletes to
step beyond their comfort zone. Our belief is that self-confidence
and self-esteem are necessary qualities to successful and enjoyable
performance. We tried to instill the belief in our athletes that
a poor performance was simply a stepping stone to increased understanding
of their own abilities, their own adaptation to a given competitive
situation and was a valuable tool in their learning. We attempted
to provide a multi-tiered foundation as a means to help our athletes
with this process. First came the emotional support. This was accomplished
by us as coaches always being present and positive regardless of
the performance outcome. Secondly, we made it clear that we would
bring the best of our knowledge and experience to each and every
one of them, regardless of their skill level or position on the
team. Thus every individual committed to success received the best
of what we had to offer. This leads to another important component
of the coaching process, namely commitment.
Commitment
Obviously coaches must be committed to the athletes and their learning.
They must be at hand to guide practice, to work with individuals
and to teach strategies, techniques, values and sportsmanship -
every day, rain or shine. The coaches' commitment is just one piece
of the puzzle though, as the athletes' commitment is equally important
to success.
As coaches, we establish a set of parameters to guide our athletes
and to help them with their commitment. We impart those rules to
our athletes so that they understand that not only have they become
part of something larger than themselves, but, that those guidelines
are necessary for them to have the opportunity to progress and achieve
higher levels of personal success. Our expectation of our athletes
was for them to be at hand, every day to participate in those sessions,
in order to learn and develop and not to be absent, as Thomas Jefferson
said, "for light and transient causes." That being said,
we were well aware that student-athletes had other callings in their
lives. They are members of student government, various clubs, had
academic responsibilities and most importantly, had family responsibilities.
Not to recognize these circumstances is to deny the student-athlete
as a person.
Regardless, our need as coaches is to have control over the time
frame proscribed for each athlete. From 3:00pm to 5:30pm, or whatever
the time frame might be, we need to have the athletes on hand and
task oriented, otherwise we are unable to fulfill our responsibility
and commitment. We expect, require, and even demand that. We are
not however, so rigid that we cannot make exception to the rule,
under acceptable circumstances. Our expectation was that such an
exception required a further statement of commitment on their part.
Extra time at the next practice, a morning session or a weekend
workout could fulfill that requirement, but that requirement was
never to be ignored or dispensed with.
Click here
for full article
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