The Paradox of Coaching

This article marks the 13th, and final, installment for this series investigating the 13 Beliefs of Good Coaches . To conclude, I hope to highlight the personal nature of coaching, and discuss how the difficulties of the job often stem from our desire to emulate those individuals that coached us. “I was born to coach”. That was the first sentence I wrote for my doctoral dissertation , the culmination of a 9-month field study into the mechanics of the coaching process. My academic advisor almost spit coffee across the room when I handed her the first draft with those words as the opening line. Her insistence to the inappropriateness of beginning a scientific paper as weighty as a dissertation with such a personal statement let me know I was on the right track. Making such an audacious and bold declaration let everyone know where I was coming from. For me, coaching is one of the most personal things you can do. Coaching has shaped who I am, coaching will forever be a part of what I ...

Recently, I posted a list of 13 Beliefs of Good Coaches . Now I’m following up by digging deeper into each of them. This post is about the twelfth belief: I am powerful, I have power over others; I can abuse that power and act like an ass. Who is John Douglas? I’m going to guess that some of my UK followers will recognize the name John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry . Nevertheless, every sports fan should be required to know his story. His is a story of fighting, fair-play, and the power of words. John Douglas is credited with what is currently known as The Queensberry Rules . Although originally written by another SportGent named John Graham Chambers in 1865, The Queensberry Rules (which was only publicly endorsed by Douglas) is a code of conduct and accepted rules for the sport of boxing. It is these rules that set the stage for how professional boxing matches are held today. What does The Queensberry Rules have to do with you? When it comes to understanding groups, ...

The following post is the eleventh installment for the 13 Beliefs of Good Coaches . Despite the essential need to set goals, good sport coaches are aware of the paradoxical quality of goal-setting. How many of you have one of those in-car navigation systems? I recently, as the caring and helpful husband I am, bought my wife one for her vehicle. Knowing how busy my wife is, running errands all over town as well as her sub-par sense of direction, I thought I was going to earn Husband of the Year honors with my gift. After hooking up the system, programing it to be as user friendly as possible, I sat back and waited for the praise to start coming my way. Well, two days later my wife informed me that it was either her or the navigation system… one of the two was going to go bye-bye. She hated it and demanded I remove it from her car immediately. Both stunned and a little hurt I decided to drive her car to a meeting I had across town to see for myself why this thing was so horrib...

This article marks the tenth installment for the 13 Beliefs of Good Coaches . This post looks at how good sports coaches believe they must be demanding. I argue that it is more important to help your athletes eliminate negative habits than it is to accentuate the positive ones. Not too long ago I had the opportunity to watch the practice of a very successful basketball coach. One thing that struck me was her relentless emphasis on the negative. It seemed that every other time she spoke it was to point out what her players were doing wrong. After the practice I asked why she felt this approach, stressing the negatives, was the right way to get her players to reach their potential. Her response, “It works.” Coach Bobby Knight was a famous (some would say infamous) college basketball coach that seemed to take this same “eliminate the negative” approach to teaching his athletes. I have to admit, I am a big Coach Knight fan and have been since first reading John Feinstein's...

This article marks the ninth installment for the 13 Beliefs of Good Coaches . This post investigates the belief that thinking out of the box is important for any coach. Encouraging your players, staff, and yourself to be innovative is vital. BUT, it is also your job to stop all bad ideas and most of the good ones too. Far and away one of my favorite sports movies of all time is Moneyball . Moneyball is the story of how Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland Athletics baseball team, transformed the game of baseball by taking a sophisticated sabermetric approach to scouting and analyzing players. The reason I loved the movie was because it portrayed an aspect of coaching that is often overlooked by the media. Sure, there are a ton of great movies, books, and documentaries about a coach that inspires his team to greatness (my all-time favorite of these is Hoosiers ). There are also wonderful stories about a coach who makes a personal connection with their athletes and helps ...

This article marks the eighth installment for the 13 Beliefs of Good Coaches . This post investigates the success paradox--the belief that the best test of any coach is to see what happens after someone makes a mistake. As a researcher who investigates the paradoxical forces involved in athletics, and as an educator who attempts to help coaches learn to be better coaches, I have been asks (too many time to count) what is the one idea that makes the biggest difference between great coaches and wayward coaches. My simple answer is this: For every positive, there is a negative. Failure is inevitable, so the key to success is to learn to be good at learning from your mistakes. The ability to capitalize on experience is the hallmark of great coaches, and the nemesis of the wayward coach. One of my research heroes Dr. Robert Sutton of Stanford University once said, “Failure sucks but instructs”. The paradox of success holds true for everyone, including those who deal with very dangerous...

This article marks the seventh installment for the  13 Beliefs of Good Sports Coaches . This post looks at the belief that attempting to be everything to everyone is not only foolish but impossible to do well. I mentioned before that I teach a Fundamentals of Coaching course at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Recently, the class discussion turned to the topic of delegating responsibilities. It is too simplistic to say, all good coaches are good delegators. Every coaching manual, leadership book, and self-help guru has so often repeated the idea leaders must delegate responsibilities, I feel the impact of this truism is losing its impact. During our class discussion, one of my students posed the question, how do wayward coaches fail to delegate? After a lively round of give-and-take, mainly lead by the student who originally posed the question, I would like to share some of our conclusions. At the onset, I would like to thank Taylor Concepcion (my student) for much of wh...

This article marks the sixth installment for the A Coach's Dozen: 13 Beliefs of Good Coaches .  This post looks at the belief that to be a good coach you must be a great teacher. With the tip-off of the college basketball season, the march to madness has begun again.  What that means for me, and countless other hoop fans, is the daily digestion of newspaper and magazine articles all breaking down the strengths and weaknesses of every one of the 347 Division I university teams.  I am sure this is a similar pre-season ritual for many of you with your favorite sport.  During my current obsession of scouting reports and team breakdowns, something struck me.  It seems the favorite cliché used by every sports reporter when describing college basketball coaches is… player’s coach .    By no means is the term player’s coach new to athletics.  In fact, I can’t recall ever meeting a coach at any level of competition that either didn’t describe themse...

Recently, I posted a list of 13 Beliefs of Good Coaches .  Now I’m following up by digging deeper into each of them.  This post is the fifth principle: I am a creator of spirit. In the dark hours of August 17th, 2017 a storm like no other hit the Gulf Coast of the United States.  The devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey is still being felt months later.  However, after the initial shock has worn off, we can begin to appreciate the stories of courage and heroism shown by so many during the disaster.  Many of these stories highlight the courage of coaches and athletes who stepped up to meet the challenge.  Please look here and here for a couple of these heartwarming stories. Great coaches understand the power of athletics.  They understand that there is an energy inherent to sport that can affect not only athletes, but everyone in our society.  The special power that athletics possesses, call it spirit, comes from the fact that athletics ...

Recently, I posted a list of 13 Beliefs of Good Coaches .  I’m following up by digging deeper into each of them.  This post is the fourth: I am balanced.  It investigates how great coaches strike a balance between being too assertive and not assertive enough. Over the past few months I have been consulting with a local high school football team.  It has been a great experience, and I can honestly say I have learned more from the team’s coaches than they have learned from me.  On one particular day, as I arrived at practice three players passed me walking in the opposite direction.  The look of shock and awe on the players’ faces was my first clue that this day’s practice was not the usual routine.  Taking my spot under the goal post, I immediately sensed the tension in the air.  Dave (the head coach) was stalking the sidelines like a hungry grizzly bear after a long winter’s nap.  This was not his usual low key, good-humored, almost mothe...

This post is the third installment in the series A Coach's Dozen: 13 Beliefs of Good Coaches . One of my favorite coaches of all time is the legendary NFL coach Vince Lombardi.  His story is told in one of the best coaching biographies ever written, David Maraniss’s When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi .  I admire many things about Coach Lombardi; his passion, his commitment to family, his faith in the power of both sport and God to bring out the best in people were all keys to Lombardi’s coaching philosophy.   Yet, the thing I admire most about Vince Lombardi is that he didn’t suggest for a second he had discovered a new way to coach.  He never pretended his success resulted from a mysterious or complicated method.  My favorite quote of Coach Lombardi’s isn’t his most famous ( winning isn’t everything… ), the quote I liked best is when he said, “Some people try to find things in this game that don’t exist, but football is only two things...

Recently, I posted a list of 13 Beliefs of Good Coaches .  This is the second installment as we dive deeper into the mindset of great coaching.   One of my favorite quotes from the legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden is, “Talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given.  Be careful.”   I imagine you have asked the question, “Why is my team so dysfunctional?”  Coaching a group of young people is like herding cats.  Frustration is just part of the job, right?  What if it’s not.  Your athletes may not be the problem.  Hold onto your hat, that dysfunction might just be your fault! A coach’s lack of self-awareness is often at the heart of a sports team’s dysfunction (Jones & Wallace, 2010) .  The next time you are frustrated and pondering why your team seems so maladjusted I want you to stop and ask a different question.  Ask, “What does it actually feel like to play for a co...