Coaching Philosphy

Recently, while scrolling Facebook waiting for an appointment I came across the following quote from a site called “The Baseball Aholic” and I thought it was so spot on based on what I am continually writing about.  The quote is as follows “Don’t coach youth sports to try and win as many games as you can, coach youth sports to try and positively influence as many lives as you can.”  What a wonderful thought, be a coach who leaves his/her ego at the door and do what is right for the children that we coach.  While I know the “hardcore” coaches out there will probably disagree with that quote because as the great Vince Lombardi once said, “winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.”  Now, while that is a wonderful sentiment for professional athletes who are getting paid huge amounts of money to play a game is it the right sentiment for young kids who are trying to learn a sport, be with their friends and have fun?

            When I was coaching I never really cared if we won or lost a game because, as the adult in the room, my alarm went off at 5:30 am the next morning for me to get ready to go to work.  Granted, when I was a kid playing youth sports, I lived and died with whether we won or lost a game…a win meant I could go to school and brag about the win to my friends, while a loss meant the I was going to take the razzing and no youngster playing a sport wants to go through a razzing from their friends.  My adult coaching philosophy ran against what the parents of the children wanted and definitely led to some heated discussions between some of the parents and myself.  They wanted to win and the bigger the margin of victory, they happier they were, and some of them did not care if their child learned anything about the sport, it was all about winning.  

            The flip side to the parents who were all about the winning is that some of the children I coached so many years ago are now coming of age, having children of their own children, and going into coaching.  Occasionally I run into either a former player or a parent of a former player and they tell me they are now coaching their own children, which thrills me to no end because they are now giving back to the next generation of young athletes.  In fact, I have had a few of my former players/parents of players to ask me for my “lesson/practice” plans so they could follow them, and some players have called me to discuss how to run a practice/game.  I happily share this information with them, and I also try to gently remind them that it is about the youngsters and teaching the game, not about winning and losing.

            I am going to leave you share with you with a quick story to show the difference between my not caring about winning and my caring about teaching.  I was coaching a group of 6- and 7-year old’s recreation league team, and I had one particularly good little player who was truly head and shoulders above the rest of the team.  He could dominate on offense and defense and basically score at will; however, our league had a seven-goal differential rule (even in the non-competitive 6- and 7-year-old Division) and in addition to him being a dominant little player, he had an ultra-competitive mom and mother’s boyfriend, who encouraged him to not listen to me and score as many goals as he wanted.  Well, this led to a dilemma to for me due to the fact that not only was I coaching in the league, but I was also a Board Member with the league and the last thing that I wanted to do was get called before the Board to answer to them as to why I was not following the rules. 

So, after a few games of him dominating on the field, I had a talk with the child explaining to him that good players score all the goals, while GREAT players make their teammates better.  Additionally, I explained to him that if he kept scoring all the goals I would have to take him out of the game due to the rules, his parents were also involved in this discussion as I wanted them to understand where I was coming from.  Well, it took a week or two for this to sink in and finally I had him playing the game the right way while making his teammates better and in turn, making the team better.  Well, lo and behold one day his travel coach came to one our games and was coaching him from the far side of the field basically telling him to disregard everything that I was saying, while being egged on by the child’s parents.  Needless to say, I pulled him from the game.  Thankfully, it was the last game of the season and when the mother came to pick up her child after the game (the boyfriend did not want to talk to me) I explained why I did what I did, the explanation did little to calm her down, but she had no choice but to accept it.  My philosophy has always been and will continue to be “teaching over winning” and no child or parent was/is going to change that.

            So, here’s hoping to someone seeing this quote and changing their philosophy from “winning to teaching” ultimately doing right by the kids on the field and not massaging the ego of the coaches and parents.