Live to Love, Love to Live

"A coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment."
-John Wooden

To play on last weeks topic of inspiring player's, I wanted to talk about motivation and teaching.

I have coached hundreds of times and with all ages. The one good quality I have seen with good coaches is that they find a way to say something so the player they are saying it to will not resent them for that whole practice or week. As I was saying last week in choosing your words wisely, it is something that I want to talk about this week also. Now, when a person is in practice, the midst of coaching, it is tough to control their words or how they react to situations. Let me give you an example through my own life.

Growing up I used to swear on the field a lot. I swore at my players and other players. Let's just say I was not the most encouraging team mate. I realized that had to change. I slowly trained my mind and mouth to stop swearing. I made myself be conscious of the words that came out of my mouth. So, I would catch myself a lot and slowly but surely I stopped swearing on the field. My demeanor changed to be more kind and encouraging towards my players. I had to find a way to criticize/teach other player's without destroying them.

There are two types of coaches I believe. Those that player's resent after training and those that do not. You can get a winning coach even if he is someone who creates fear in his player's through his word domination. I like to call it word domination, because the coach creates a dominating force over player's in belittling them. The player's then come to focus very hard, but only because they know the coach will lambaste them if they do not get it right. These player's may think the coach is great, but they do not like him and will not really talk to their coach much after they play for them. I encourage coaches everywhere to be the coach that motivates through positive criticism and finds ways their player's will not resent them at the end of the day.

Our minds are powerful in that we can control the way we think and say things. If we create an environment that cultivates creativity and being comfortable at training, then we will be on the right track. I do not know about you, but I want my player's to love talking to me. I want them to remember me and want to stay in touch with me. I not only want to be a successful coach on the field, but a coach that is successful off of it. Create that environment that not only teaches player's about soccer, but about growing as a human being. Use the way you talk to them and interact with them as an example. They will look up to you, but make it because they want to be like you and not fear you.

QOTW (Question of the Week) for tomorrow: post your answers on the comment board and I will put the best one's up for tomorrow...
---If you could be any animal, what would it be and why?---