Are You A Coach's Favorite?

Every coach has his or her favorites.  And those favorites are not always the biggest, strongest, fastest player on the team that scores the most goals, or gets all of the touchdowns or makes the most 3's.  

Coaches love players who are fun to coach.  Coaches love players who love playing and who bring energy and enthusiasm every day.  Coaches love players who want to come to practice, players who want to learn, and players who want to get better.

Coaches love players who they can COACH.  Of course, coaches want to win.  But coaches also want to share their love, knowledge and passion for the game, and they want you to grow and learn so that you can become the best player that you can be.  To do that, players must want feedback and constructive criticism so that they know what they are doing well and what they need to work on to get better.

Coaches love players who show up on time, who are prepared, and who give eye contact.  When a coach talks, they love players who are actively listening and paying full attention to him or her and not their friends.  Coaches love players who say yessir, no sir and yes ma'am and no ma'am.  Coaches love players who show respect to everybody: their parents, their teammates, their friends, their coaches, the referees, their opponents, etc.

Coaches also love players who don't back down.  They love players who are not afraid of mistakes because they know that mistakes are a part of growing and getting better; you can't become the best at what you do without making A LOT of mistakes along the way.  Coaches love players who learn from their mistakes and don't dwell on their mistakes.  Coaches love players who are tough and are willing to compete every day with themselves and their teammates.  Coaches love players who come in early and stay late.  Coaches love when they see players working on the things that they are trying to teach them.

Coaches love players who go all out on every sprint, touch every line, and take no shortcuts.  Coaches love players who do the little extra in every drill.  Doing one little extra thing, in every drill, every day goes a long way over the course of a career.  Coaches love players who are first in line.  Coaches love players who try to get extra reps.  When the lines are uneven, coaches love the players who willing come back to go with that last group.

Coaches love players who ask their coach about their day, their family and their lives outside of practice.  Coaches love players who genuinely want to get to know them.  Coaches love when their players use the lessons that they taught outside of the game.  Coaches love seeing their players grow up and become productive, happy adults.  Coaches love being invited to their players' weddings and seeing pictures of their players' kids on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.  Coaches love knowing that they played a valuable part of your life, and coaches are happy and relieved to know that they didn't mess their part up.

Yes, your coach has favorites.  You can easily be one of them, and it has NOTHING to do with your talent.  It has EVERYTHING to do with your character.

Are you a coach's favorite?