Coaching

In 1998 during a practice for my high school rugby team a coach did something that has informed the way I have approached coaching ever since. We were practicing breaking out from a scrum. Our wings were set to the left. I was the scrum half and my coach was acting as the opposing scrum half. As the ball made its way out of the scrum I reached down, with my chest facing my coach, and grabbed the ball. He quickly lunged forward and hammered across my arms as I tried to pitch the ball, causing the ball to go stray. Without saying anything about it the coach had us reset the scrum and try again. This time I stepped over the ball, keeping my body between the coach and the ball, reached down and pitched out. He was unable to reach around to disrupt the pitch. What I learned was simple. Despite my being more comfortable pitching with my right hand, it was vulnerable to attack from the defense doing it this way. It was far better to shield it and use my less dominant hand to get the pitch off. This Socratic approach to coaching has sat with me ever since. In my head I thought “What went wrong? How can I prevent it from happening again?” I was able to reason for myself the correct way to handle the situation. The Socratic method is the idea that the best way to teach someone isn’t to give them answers - it’s to ask the right questions until they find the answers themselves. This story is about rugby, but it is just a matter of switching context. As a youth football coach I try to create similar Socratic environments for my players. ...

Sometime in the mid ’90s, while I was playing high school football, I read an article in Sports Illustrated. The article was about a division III college football coach who was taking a non-traditional approach to coaching. The article is lost to me, as I could not find it during an internet search, but the premise stuck with me all this time. In the article, as far as I recall, the coach would encourage/require the players to make daily affirmations. He would stride through formation during pre-practice stretching, talking about how beautiful the day was, and that each and every player belongs there. He would make them repeat phrases aloud. The intent was clear, to me at least, that he was using those affirmations to prepare the players for the practice. To stay focused and build confidence. It seemed to have worked as well. The program was successful, winning many games, and stood in stark contrast to traditionally run programs. For example, the one I was playing for at the time. A top down dictatorship, with strict adherence to what the coaches commanded, all coming from a hard nosed head coach who would lose his temper and scream at people who made mistakes. Fear was one of their main tools of motivation. ...