Are You a "Smart" Coach? If Not, Read On……and You Will Be.

The whole point of sports is to have fun and overcome challenges. If the emphasis is on winning as the end product, instead of the process of playing the game, some undesirable things happen. Players become fearful of making mistakes. They start complaining and pointing fingers instead of taking personal responsibility for their own mistakes.

If a coach overemphasizes winning as the end product, the team is in for a frustrating season. Players' skills are not likely to improve very much, enthusiasm will be curbed, and team spirit will fade. In this case the season will likely end not having been much fun for players, parents, or the coach. When this happens, the point of game playing is lost altogether. Disappointment replaces fun and there isn't much sense of personal achievement.

One of the key ingredients of the process of coaching is training players how to compete against themselves. There is a tremendous sense of personal achievement when a player reaches a new level, and that positive momentum carries them forward to the next challenge.

Great athletes are task oriented toward personal improvement. They set clearly defined, measurable goals like running faster, getting stronger, leaping higher, improving confidence, increasing scoring accuracy, and devoting more time to training. They know that their contribution to the team as a whole can be measured by their own improvement in skills. Taken together, if team members don't focus on personal improvement, guess where the team will end up at the close of the season.

This is what coaching is all about and what makes it a fundamentally simple proposition. Coaching success can be measured by how well a coach creates, defines, and manages the process of developing individual players and the team as a whole.

How do successful coaches channel their athlete's natural motivation into activities that improve the quality and consistency of their play? They follow the "SMART" process.

Effective goals:

• Specific - are very specific, usually focusing on behaviors (e.g. turnovers, or practice free throws) rather than results (points scored or games won)
• Measurable - are easily measurable (number of turnovers we created)
• Achievable - may be a stretch sometimes, but they can generally experience success
• Realistic - not so high that they are unrealistic or impractical
• Time-Oriented - they measure performance in units of time (like games, quarters, half-seasons)

See You At the Top!!

Coach Matt

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