Assumptive Coaching | Don't Assume, Don't Complain - Teach and Coach Them Up!

Have you ever been frustrated because your athletes can't perform certain skills that you feel like they SHOULD know or be able to do but can't?

Assumptive coaching assuming that the athletes that we get already know how to do something.  It's very dangerous to assume that anyone already knows anything, and we shouldn't punish or belittle our athletes because they weren't taught something that we feel like they should have been taught.

I got my start in coaching at a junior college in Oklahoma.  I was fortunate that the head coach that I worked for broke down the game each year for all of our players to the basics.  We would spend the first few weeks working on triple threat, shot fakes, jab steps, jump stops, and lay-up footwork like we were at a camp for beginners; we even had the guys get in lines like we were at camp the first week to teach the basic fundamentals.  My head coach said that he never assumed that any of these college athletes knew anything coming in, and he refused to skip steps in the learning process.  

I left there and started working at a high school.  We didn't teach a lot of those same basics because we thought that all of the players at this level should already know those things.  They didn't, and we struggled.

These experiences taught me never to assume that any of your players know anything, and if you make that mistake, as soon as you realize that you have players that don't know something that you feel like they should, stop immediately and teach or reteach as necessary.  Don't just let your players go without knowing something because they should have already learned it.

It is our job to have a vision for where our players and teams can go, and help them get there.  It would be great if they all received the prerequisite skills before they got to us, but some of them didn't.  We can spend our time and careers complaining about what they don't already know, or we can find solutions and teach.

Here is a video about Greg Popovich and the San Antonio Spurs.  Here he talks about how they break the game down to the basics each year at training camp.

It's about organization.  It's about discipline.  It's about building the blocks.  It's about relationships with your players.  How do you get something out of someone who is selfish, or who doesn't compete the way that you would like?  All of those things have more to do with winning and losing than any play that we can draw up.

- Gregg Popovich

Assumptive Coaching is assuming that they already know something, should know something, or should be able to do something.

When our assumptions are wrong, it can cause a lot of stress and frustration.

I used to get frustrated and mad at my kids and their previous coaches when they didn’t know something. 

Now I just TEACH them what they don’t know.

This could be a technical skill, like making a layup or striking a ball correctly.

This could be an IQ skill, like knowing where the next play should be made.

This could be a character skill, like showing up early and staying late to work on your game.