Being a youth or interscholastic coach can be an awesome experience filled with countless exciting life experiences, including building healthy relationship with kids, pursuing team championships, and coming together as a team when faced with stress, adversity, and dealing with losses (Sport Success 360). Unfortunately, for some coaches, the experience quickly becomes overwhelming as they become an unfortunate victim to things like their own perfectionism and control, inability to work with kids, and unwillingness to build relationships with parents.
Coaching, like most things in life, is really what you make of it. Successful coaches have realistic personal expectations and team goals, and make sure to prioritize their own health and family before their role as a coach. Of course, there’s more to it than just those simple reminders, including a few more ideas to consider below:
- Make downtime a priority. Today, even youth and interscholastic coaches are at-risk for burnout as it is becoming commonplace to see these coaches put in unbelievable amounts of time into their coaching. Similar to college and pro coaches, amateur coaches sometimes go too hard for too long, resulting in a host of physical, emotional, and social problems. Consequently, it is vitally important to keep a schedule that allows you to take breaks and get away when needed. Sure, this may not be easy to do, but if you don’t do it not only will coaching soon become a lot less fun, but your team will also likely suffer as a result.
- Keep up with training. There are so many changes in youth sports today and many leading sport psychologists, sport educators, and sports medicine personnel have developed important educational training to help meet these needs. While some leagues and states require specific training, it is important to consider going above the minimum in order to stay abreast of emerging trends – like sports burnout. Unfortunately, some coaches only do the minimum when it comes to training, and view anything above that as “punitive” rather than educational.
- Teach kids about athletic transferable skills. I talk about these skills a lot, and that’s because they are the essence of the youth sport experience! Be sure the kids you coach do not minimize the value of the skills they learn in sports, nor falsely assume that all kids have learned the same skills. Be sure to talk regularly about how things like mental toughness, confidence, discipline, and resiliency are not only skills for sport success, but also life success.
- Involve parents. Quite often the #1 complaint I hear from coaches is “parents.” The main reason coaches feel this way has to do with how parents feel their child should be used compared to how the coach is actually using the child. The disconnect seems to exist on every youth and interscholastic sports team to some extent, making it an issue coaches need to be proactive with when deciding upon their personal philosophy. Successful coaches often have pre-season meetings to kick off the start of the season, and talk about their coaching philosophy and how parents can be a positive and active part of the team. Some coaches even set up ways for parents to ask constructive questions about their child and how he/she can improve, and possibly even earn more playing time in the future. Regardless of how you develop your philosophy, one thing is certain — when parents feel disconnected and under-appreciated, they often let their feelings be known, which can in turn make for a very long season.
- Emphasize the positives!!!! High fives, emphatic praise, and a general positive attitude can go a long, long way when it comes to sports. Choose your daily attitude and be sure to “catch” kids doing things right, especially when they give great effort (even if the results aren’t always great).
For more information about youth and interscholastic coaching success, check out Sport Success 360 or visit Advanced Human Performance Systems today!
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