‘It’s all political’, ‘he just doesn’t like my daughter’, ‘he has his favorites that he plays all the time’….. Sound familiar? I guarantee those three phrases have been said about every coach in the country in regards to playing time. I want to take a few minutes to discuss those quotes a little and discuss the parents’ role (or at least what my opinion is of the parents’ role) during their child’s athletic career. ‘It’s all political’.…..this is a phrase usually uttered by parents whose child isn’t playing as much as they want them to. Presumably, they are suggesting that …
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I don’t know if I heard that phrase from someone else or not…..I actually think that it is one I came up with. Simply put, ‘false praise’ is when you tell a kid ‘good job’ when they didn’t do a good job. Usually, the intentions are good…..coaches and parents deal out false praise when they are trying to build a kid up. But, there are two problems with that in my opinion: I think it’s actually counter-productive to improvement. When you take away the sting or pain of failure, you take away some of the incentive to get better. It’s …
Whether you are dealing with players on your team, fellow teachers, fellow coaches, or employees of your business……excuse making and dependability rarely go hand-in-hand. I always have a hard time trusting or depending on someone when an excuse is the first thing they offer up to you.
Subscribing is a two-step process……after you subscribe, you will get an automated email back that will request you to confirm the subscription. If you do not confirm, I don’t think you will get notices of new posts. As I look at the list of subscribers, there are several that haven’t confirmed their subscription……I guess it just dawned on me that might be by choice! Haha If you have subscribed, but don’t get notices of new posts (and want to get them), look back in the email that you received when you subscribed, and see if you have clicked on the confirmation …
Coaching is such a negative endeavor The nature of the profession demands that you are constantly looking for things that are wrong (negatives) so that you can fix them. In addition to that, a coach is constantly bombarded with outside criticism and second guessing. So much negativity…..it really is hard to remain positive in such a negative environment. I think that making a conscious effort to find positives on a daily basis is important to anyone’s mental health, especially a coach or educator. Whenever I am asked ‘How are you today?’, my reply is either ‘Better than I deserve’ or …
Video, or as we called it in the old days…..film. I have always been a big believer in watching film with my teams. Early on in my career, I met a guy that had gone to high school in Dimmitt and played for the great Kenneth Cleveland. I asked him how much film they watched……his reply was an emphatic ‘lots!’ I had never met Coach Cleveland, but knew of Dimmitt and their great teams of the 70’s and early 80’s. I wish that I’d had the opportunity to meet Coach Cleveland…..he was obviously a great coach, and by all accounts …