A Coach's Diary

The best coaches coach players, not Xs and Os. Don't be so focused on the plays that you ignore the quality of relationships with your athletes. The quality of the relationships that we have with our athletes is as important as anything we can do. They are more important than (almost) any play you can draw up or drill that you can teach. "Culture eats strategy for lunch." Positive relationships help even our best athletes reach their full potential under less stress because we, as humans, are hardwired for relationships and to connect with others. Some neuroscientists  even argue that our need to connect with others is even more basic than food and shelter and is the primary motivation of one’s behavior. At the core of positive relationships is trust. Caring is the way that we generate the trust that builds relationships (CRT and the Brain) . When we intentionally build trust and relationships,  our athletes will be more willing to put themselves ou...

We all have experiences where we get so triggered, so mad, that we blow up on everyone around us. Coaching is such an intense profession, and as much as we talk about relationships and growing people, it is highly driven by wins and losses. Coaching and communicating can lead to miscommunication and unintended conflict. We have this thing in our brains called the amygdala - our brain's guard dog - that stays alert and keeps us safe.  When that kid second-guesses us in the middle of a big timeout, or that athlete talks back in the middle of an important and intense defensive drill, or when that angry parent starts to storm across the court, coming to talk to you about what his daughter didn't play in the final few minutes of a big game, that triggers what many of us call  Fight, Flight or Freeze  mode. That feeling of the hairs rising on the back of your neck, or your body getting hot, or the sudden need to ball up your fist (or the sudden need to run to the locker ...

A big part of coaching is our ability to connect with our athletes and their families. A quote that will stick with me is, "He made me feel seen, heard, and cared for as a learner." As coaches, we can easily change that quote to say, " My coach made me feel seen, heard, and cared for as an athlete, and as a person ." We are wired for connection. We all have different reasons for why we started playing and why we have stayed around the game, but at the foundation of sports is the human need to connect. Our brain's two main goals are to stay safe and be happy. We internally protect our self-worth, our self-determination, our well-being, and our connection to the community. To get our athletes to perform at their best for themselves and for the team, we need our athletes to feel like they are valued members of the team, and we do that by minimizing threats and maximizing well-being. Sometimes, one of the biggest threats to our athletes can be ourselves. We have all...

When we create partnerships with our athletes and their families and establish authentic connections, we build mutual trust and respect. We can then leverage that trust bond to help our athletes rise to higher expectations. We can also give feedback and constructive criticism in ways that our athletes are able to take it in and act on it. Creating partnerships also allows us to hold them to higher standards and challenge them more. Simply put, partnerships with our athletes help us coach them better and tougher so that we can get the most out of them because they know we care and have their best interests at heart. Get to know your athletes, what their interests are, what motivates them, what triggers them, how they best learn, and what their goals are. via: Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain

Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) is the idea that students learn better when the material and teaching connects with their culture, their backgrounds, and their experiences. Instead of just giving students materials to learn from textbooks and worksheets, learning improves when we help make meaningful connections between the students and what we are teaching. When we help make these connections and build relevance between what they are learning and their lives, we can increase rigor, we can develop high-level academic skills, and dive deeper into the learning. The same can be said and should be said when we are coaching. When a lot of us were growing up, we were at the mercy of our coach. Whatever system he/she wanted to run is what we ran. We didn’t have much of a say-so and the coach was the judge, jury, and executioner. We are learning in the classroom that helping students connect with the learning increases achievement, and the same is seen in sports. Inst...