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CHANGING WITH THE TIMES: ‘OLD SCHOOL’ METHODS ARE OUTDATED
To become a better coach, you need to stop shouting and start nurturing your players in the right way to get the best out of them.
Coach you have the power to raise your players’ technical and physical ability to new high standards. You have the ability to motivate, to share wisdom and instil essential life skills that players won’t learn at home. You can plant seeds of love and passion in every athlete and shower them with praise
Yelling and screaming like you have Tourette syndrome is “old school” and quite frankly has no place on the sport field. If your boss had to scream your instructions to you day in and day out, one of two things would happen. You are going to get desensitised to the noise or you are going to pack your bags and find another job. Practice your verbal cues to your players and give your cues meaning. If you want your team to have a better attacking approach you need to turn up the heat and come up with a creative visual and verbal cue; call it the “Mighty Duck V” formation. Explain to your players in practice how to set it up, what each player’s role is, how each player works in unison with another player and what the objectives and outcomes are.
Teach and reinforce the attack by randomly calling out the play and admiration, constantly motivating yet never criticising.
You have the chance to leave a positive and lasting impression on the minds of soldiers that will do anything for you, provided you treat them right. You have the power.
The problem facing you coach, is that you can abuse this power too. You have the power to create an environment of fear, a culture of accepting abuse and a breeding ground for players with self-esteem and confidence issues. You have the power to destroy your players both mentally and physically.
Unfortunately, most coaching taught in at any given time during your practice, in a mock game set up of course. Where there are areas that need fine tuning, focus on those points, explain the problem, ask your team for solutions so that they become part of the problem-solving process and then empower them to take action. The Mighty Duck Flying V formation is a random acronym for a play you have created and it could be anything. To change play during a match, you don’t even have to shout out anything. Call out a player’s name and hold your hands up in a V formation. He will then pass the message throughout the team.
Understand that you can’t micro-manage your players from the sideline. This is not your life-sized foosball machine. You have to teach your players what you want and how to execute it during practice and then simply use cue codes and gestures to manage the team. South Africa is based on old school ideas and outdated “work until you bleed, or yell and scream until they listen” training mentalities. When you are brought up in a culture of “old school” then “old school” behaviour is all you will understand. We are not here to pick on coaches by any means – this article is written for the intent to make you a better coach.
If you as a coach right now are awarded a contract to train Ronaldo or Messi, would you even dream of yelling and screaming at these professionals even if they don’t get your new technique? You will be most patient, careful and nurturing. A simple task I am assigning to you is, treat your young athletes like you would treat a professional. It is really that simple. When your player does something that you wanted him to do, stop the practice, praise the player in front of everyone and then use the situation to explain to everyone why it was so great. Players will be glued to your words because they too will seek the validation from their coach. In dealing with athletes, my philosophy when teaching something new is, wait for the “light bulb” moment. You teach a player a new drill yet he keeps failing at. At this point don’t place any emphasis on outcome. Simply motivate him to keep his chin up. Sometimes the light might take weeks to come on but when it does, you make the biggest scene praising the athlete. Remember to tell him that you are proud of him and that he needs to keep working hard. Coach, sometimes (and you know it) you love the sound of your own voice because it hasn’t stopped giving instruction the whole practice. Stop and ask one or two athletes in key roles to explain in their own words what their goals and objectives for the drill are. If a player cannot put your instructions into words, he has not thought about it, let alone remembered anything. As a coach that applies to you too. If you read the latest coaching manual from Fifa yet failed to take that information and communicate it effectively to your management and players, then that information has been a waste of time. Some players will be better communicators than others so create a safe environment for players to express themselves. Make sure they can express themselves, it is critical for a team’s success both on and off the field.