How to Get the Best Out of Your Players and Team Without Crossing THAT Line

Sadly, it is very common to see, hear and witness coaches verbally and physically abusing players and teams attempting to motivate them to do what the coaches want them to do.  Here are some guidelines to motivate and develop players and teams by inspiration, not intimidation.

Building Common Ground

• Coaches should be role models to their players in everything the coaches say and do.
• Players are often not good at listening to their coaches, but they rarely fail to imitate them.
• Communications that you will receive from players ten years after you coach them are going to be less about the wins and losses and more about how you made them a better person.
• The key to motivating people is to catch them doing something right.
• When things do not go well, look first in the mirror with honest intent.
• Remember why you should coach. We coach people, not sports. The purpose of coaching is to teach life lessons within the game for beyond the game.  It is the quality of the person, not the player, that is the most significant outcome.

 
Things to Remember About How to Get the Best Out of a Player and Team

• Players learn in different ways.
• Players are motivated in different ways.
• From season-to-season, teams have different personalities.
• There is more than one way to discipline a player and a team.
• Running a player or a team is rarely the most appropriate and effective form of discipline.
• Rarely is disciplining the entire team for the indiscretions of one or a few players the most appropriate and effective way of handling an issue.

• Yelling at an entire team or at one player is never appropriate. Anger is always about the person who is angry and never about the person at whom the anger is directed.

• Positive rewards are better motivators than negative consequences.
• The personal space of a player must always be respected.
• Touching a player is only appropriate while giving praise or encouragement.
• The mental health of a player can be harmed in direct and indirect ways both in actions and failing to act and verbally and non-verbally.
• The consequences of harming a player’s mental health extend far beyond the field to school, home and life in general, now and in the future.
• Never assume mental and emotional stability from athletic ability.
• Prioritizing winning above all else can be detrimental to the physical development and mental health of the players and the team in the short term and long term.
• You can be a valuable, positively impactful, and successful coach without a winning record.