Sandwich Your Criticism

Have you ever tried coaching your athletes hard and they give you attitude or shut down on you? It is frustrating when I can't coach my athletes the way that I need to coach them, and sometimes I don't understand why they won't let me teach them the way that I need to teach them without shutting down. But the NCAA transfer portal is one of many indicators that let us know how important it is to think about the way we communicate to our athletes in today's world.

One simple thing that I have learned to do is sandwich the meat of the conversation - the hard stuff - between the positive stuff. As often as I can, I try to sandwich my coaching and criticism between positive comments. It helps. At the end of many practices, I do let my athletes know that many coaches in their lives won't be as nice in the way that they deliver their messages, and they have to learn how to find the message in the coaching, criticism, or yelling so that they are prepared for different coaching styles as they grow up. I want to give them the best experience that I can while preparing them for different coaching styles that they might encounter.

Two more pro-tips that I have learned are that it is more effective to deliver the criticism in a positive way, and it is important to give them action items that they can do or correct in the teaching process. It is not enough to tell them what they are doing wrong. We have to give them options on how to fix it.

Here are a few examples:

- "You aren't taking good shots."
- "You are playing hard and being aggressive. You have to take better shots in rhythm. Keep playing hard, and keep being aggressive."

- "You have to do a better job on defense."
- "You are getting in position, but you have to keep your girl in front of you. Keep working hard to get in position, move your feet, and stay in front. I believe in you."

- "You can rush the quarterback harder than you are doing."
- "You made some great tackles, but you can do a better job of getting to the quarterback. Try the swim move that we worked on, keep being creative, and keep pushing."

- "You didn't do a great job of taking care of the ball today."
- "I love how you are trying new things, but we have to make sure that we are still taking care of the ball while we do this. Keep pushing and keep being creative!

As with most of these sports posts, this works at home with your spouse and kids at home, and this works with the people that you work with.