Psychology topics for coaches
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Last Updated on Friday, 04 January 2013 17:42
By John Russo
Let’s Play Hockey Columnist
Note: This will be one of the articles (Chapter 3: Relations, Psychology, Discipline, Attitude) in John Russo’s soon-to-be published new book “Best of Coaches Corner - 26 Years.” Watch for it in 2013.
It is actually easier to coach the physical part of the game for most coaches. It tends to be the mental part that is difficult. The coach that can put both of these together is rare indeed. It is also important to get psychological items set before the season starts and to begin implementation right away.
In many instances, coaches have their own hang-ups, or let’s call it lack of understanding, to overcome to be able to effectively coach youngsters – or even older players for that matter. Some of these hang-ups include:
• Coaching their own youngsters.
It is difficult for any coach to properly be objective when coaching a son or daughter. There are two extremes to avoid. The first and most obvious is being biased for their own. Parents cannot reasonably look at their own child and not have great empathy, as well desire, to see them do well. In some cases, the parent/coach is there to “protect” their own. The second extreme is the coach that over compensates in trying to be fair. This is more difficult for the child, since it is their parent coaching – and they are not used to being treated as just one of the group by their parent.
• Taking success too personally.
Some coaches use their team as a means of gratification for themselves because they lack it in other areas of their lives. I’m not saying that coaches shouldn’t feel a sense of satisfaction as well as enjoy coaching, but the extreme is nearly always bad. The coaching of youngsters has its rewards as does coaching a successful team. Too often, however, it is the power or the winning that coaches lack in other aspects of their lives that they are after.
• Coaches can’t assess themselves very well.
If each coach could stand back and objectively watch themselves in practice and games, they would have a better understanding of what other people see. Coaches want to look proper and “reasonable;” most feel that they are. They want others to see them that way, as well. They often can’t objectively see themselves, however. They need someone else to take a look for them and give an honest assessment.
• Coaches can’t relate.
Most coaches are 10, 20, 30 years older than players they coach. It takes work and study to know, at least somewhat, how a 10-year-old or a 16-year-old thinks and feels. Sometimes, bad experiences at age 10 or 11 also slant the coach’s approach. A bad experience with a coach or a in a sport 20 or 30 years ago has very little to do with coaching a team of 15 or 20 youngsters today.
I always recognize some of these traits in myself. Having coached for going on 30 years, I’ve likely had a bit of all the problems somewhere along the way. I still ask myself every year why I want to coach this next season. I haven’t coached my own youngsters for over a dozen years now and have other successful business and family endeavors, so my reasons have to be narrowed down.
If a coach can be objective, overcome hang-ups, and decide to coach for mostly the right reasons (including “I like it’), then he or she is ready to deal with the psychological aspects for the best benefit to team players. Notice I didn’t say coaches should use psychology to win. Actually I did mean win, but winning in that the players gain personal and team skills and experiences that will help them down the line. Down the line may even be next week or in the latter part of the season, or later in life.
The keys to this whole process, I believe, are a reasonably positive approach and building of player’s self confidence. Self confidence includes many other things such as self esteem and self worth. It is very difficult to coach in a perfectly positive mode. I believe that positive feedback has to be in the “majority,” however. There will be teaching, correcting and disciplining moments for all players that will be on the other side of the ledger, but in the end, the ledger must be heavy on the positive side.
I also believe that having a primarily positive approach, to some degree, comes from the coach truly liking the players. Each player has things to like and the coach must find those things. At the high school level, I always have players that are truly nice young men – intelligent, talented in other things, fun to be around. Sometimes they are not very good hockey players. I want to like them for all that they are and be as positive as possible (and honest) with them.
Self confidence is the most important thing for a coach to strive for with players. We have all seen teams that seem to play right up to and beyond their potential or talent level. We have also seen teams that seem to struggle to achieve their potential. They are what we normally call underachievers. They likely suffer from low self confidence. Passes are just off, they look tired, and they don’t seem to be able to get it done.
The positive approach and good skill development are the keys to self confidence. We are not going to get into skill development this week, but I will say that there are right ways and wrong ways to build skills – and have players confident they can express them in games.
It is my belief that no matter what else happens or improves, from the beginning to the end of a season, a team will get measurably better if self confidence goes up measurably during that time.
John Russo, Ph.D., is founder and director of the Upper Midwest High School Elite League. He was a captain at the University of Wisconsin, and his Coaches’ Corner columns have appeared in LPH since 1986.