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Coaches have been using different motivating methods on players for as long as games have been played.

Some resort to yelling and cursing. Others stress positive. Some, such as McAneney, try to get creative.

There is no right or wrong way for coaches to look for ways to get the most out of their players, but sports psychologists believe young athletes shouldn’t be treated the same as professionals.

“A lot of kids are turned off by sports by some of these militant, dogmatic coaches who are kind of dictators,” said Dr. Jay Granat, a sports psychologist based in Bergen County. “I’ve seen a lot of kids who give up a sport because they’re kind of abused.”

“The vast majority of coaches understand kids aren’t pro athletes and you can’t talk to kids in a way that they’re not going to benefit,” said Dr. Joel Fish, the director for The Center for Sport Psychology in Philadelphia, who has been a consultant for the Flyers, 76ers and Phillies. “When a coach challenges a kid or wants to motivate a kid by putting them down, they think they’re building character. Well, that doesn’t work with a lot of pro athletes, so it’s not going to work with kids or teens. In coaching in general, the undermining theme of being hard on a kid to build toughness and character can be really awful and they get hurt.”

Dr. Granat believes coaches of all ages would be wise following the motivating tactics of John Wooden, the late UCLA basketball coach who won 10 national championships in a 12-year stretch from 1963 to 1975 preaching his Pyramid of Success.

“Wooden was all about integrity, discipline and focus,” Dr. Granat said. “He wasn’t about tearing an athlete down. One of his ideas was never let what you can’t do stop you from doing what you can do. He was all about developing potential.

“I think at the high school level, it’s fine for kids to have an understanding of structure and rules, but they should also be treated with kindness, dignity and respect. I think most coaches would get more mileage out of that. The great coaches I’ve seen are great psychologists. They know how to treat people to develop their potential with some firmness, some discipline and encouragement to try harder. But the stuff that falls into abusiveness, who likes it?”

There are no rules, though, so athletes young and old can wind up with coaches who motivate with positive or negative feedback.

“It all depends on the coaches,” said Rick Brown, former head football coach at Camden Catholic High School, who is the offensive coordinator at Eastern High School. “There are coaches out there that still yell and scream at kids. There are coaches in South Jersey that yell and scream at kids, but whether the school accepts it or not is their decision.

“I’ve always tried to treat each kid with respect and motivate them in a way where I can get everything out of them. But there still are coaches out there who aren’t doing that, and every once in a while one will hit the news and you’ll hear about them. But the good coaches still keep being good coaches.”