As a coach of young athletes, you can have a profound
influence on their lives if you fulfill your obligation of using athletics as a way to teach life skills. Remember, student-athletes are students first, athletes second.
It’s important that you determine what type of coaching
philosophy you will have before you begin your season so you can be consistent throughout the season, and know how to deal with unique situations which will undoubtedly arise during your season.
Is winning important to you as your ultimate goal?
Admit it if it is.
Do you keep everyone who comes out or do you cut? By
keeping everyone, you offer more youngsters the opportunity to develop self-esteem, goal-setting skills, discipline and teamwork. But by keeping everyone, you are able to pay less individual attention to each player.
If you have a no-cut policy, think about the up- and down-sides, and try to find solutions to address this (two different practice times, having varsity players act as assistant coaches with the JV, etc.).
Very often, your goals may be subordinate to those of the school’s. Meet with your A.D. to determine if there is a coaching philosophy which he or she wants applied to all the school’s sports and meet with other coaches to discuss how they use these philosophies in their sports.
Keep in mind that multiple surveys of youth athletes over decades have found that having fun was kids’ number one priority—winning came in 10th in one study.
Goal- vs. Results-Oriented Coaching
While every coach ultimately wants to and must try to win, if you have a team of primarily freshman and sophomores, or if you have primarily recreational players in your program, your goals may be primarily developmental.
If your emphasis is on having each player meet individual goals, this might help keep morale high on a team which traditionally wins few matches, if players see their teammates beginning to achieve individual goals.
One player may want to develop a more consistent
serve; another might want to dink better, while another might want to improve her conditioning as a way to stay in matches longer.
Three Types of Coaching Styles
#1 Command Style
This style of coaching emphasizes the authority of the
coach. This coach does not encourage two-way dialogue or questions so as to establish the coach’s authority.
This style of coaching often breeds hesitancy and fear of failure in an athlete. Frustration also builds when athletes aren’t allowed to ask questions or participate in their own development. Players often give up, drop off the team or join another team.
While many coaches believe that command-style coaches show their confidence in their abilities, these types of coaches are often actually insecure and limit questions or explanations of their directions because they may not be able to defend them.
#2 Cooperative Style
Coaches using a cooperative coaching method ask players to help make decisions so that team members buy into solutions. Rather than just giving directives, cooperative-style coaches listen and evaluate while providing instructions. Athletes are more motivated if they are into it.
Allowing players to participate also helps raise their self-esteem if they feel they opinions and suggestions are valuable.
#3 Submissive
This type of coach makes very few decisions. Quite often, this is the math or history teacher who has never played pickleball and has been asked to act as a team “monitor,” more so than as a coach. These coaches rarely provide any individualized instruction.
As they try not to expose their lack of knowledge of the game, they often appear disinterested to their players. Players make decisions about what drills they will do, how hard they will practice, etc. This style of coaching invites problems.
The cooperative style of coaching is the most effective for the majority of coaches, but includes using elements of the other two styles to round out a coaching style.
For example, there will be times when a team begins to lose focus or a discipline problem begins to arise, and a command-style of coaching may be needed here.
A coach may let a team captain lead the conditioning portion of a practice to reinforce the captain’s authority; in an effort to help a player build self-confidence, you may ask him to suggest a drill and let that player run the drill.
Be Consistent
It’s critical that you be consistent in applying your coaching philosophy and team rules. If you tell your players that pre-season matches are to be used to work on skill development under pressure, then berate players, or even show that you are personally upset after the team does not win those matches, you will confuse your players.
If you do not enforce your team rules with your star player, it will be almost impossible to discipline lower-level players and you may invite problems as players and their parents complain to your A.D.
Be Prepared
While you can’t foresee every incident that may occur during a season, you can prepare for some of the more obvious ones by asking other coaches about recurring problems they face.
Players who throw paddles, curse, miss practice or break other team rules should be disciplined according to the rules you have laid out.
At an international coaching conference, a discussion moderator asked coaches how they would respond to a player who yelled a racial slur at another during the final set of a match that would send the winning team to the state championships for the first time.
Opinions varied, with some suggesting an application the official league rules, while others calling for an immediate default.
Would defaulting this player be fair if it robbed the entire team of their chance to go to the state championships?
Would this player jeopardize a college scholarship for this one incident? How would you react?
What’s Good for the Goose…
If you tell your players not to drink, but have beer, wine or liquor when you travel with the team, even at a restaurant or social function, you are sending a mixed message. Do you smoke in front of your players? Don’t make your players hit the salad bar at Wendy’s, then order two bacon cheeseburgers for yourself.
Playing skills are some of the least necessary and least-used skills of any coach. Even if you are new to pickleball, there are many videos and online articles covering the various technical, tactical and sport science aspects of the game for some examples.
Increasing your knowledge of conditioning, injury prevention, nutrition, equipment and psychology, while you develop your knowledge of specific pickleball areas, will increase your confidence in your coaching abilities and earn you more respect from your team members.
Having a proactive, rather than a reactive coaching philosophy benefits everyone with whom you work, and makes your job much easier and much more enjoyable.